Volcano Trail Cowl
Volcano Trail, designed by Maxim Cyr, is our latest craze at My Sister Knits! Some of you may have seen the Mini-Unbearable Hoodie on display at the shop. Max designed that as well.
My Sister Knits’ shop sample in neutrals.
Max, aka maxtheknitter on Instagram, lives in Montreal. Besides designing knitwear, he is a children’s book illustrator and author. Only one of his books is available in English on Amazon; the rest are in French, Spanish, or Chinese!
His first pattern was published at the end of 2018 and since then he has 17 patterns available on Ravelry. All in the space of two years!
© Les Garçons Mini-Unbearable Hoodie
Volcano Trail is a cowl that has a construction we’ve never seen before! Those of you who dislike purling are going to love it! There is only one round of purling in the entire cowl. The top and bottom stockinette borders are knit in the round. You work back and forth to create the garter stitch body. Ingenious!
Reading through the directions before you start is going to be a treat. Max indicates how many stitches you should have on your needles after each section. He also counts the garter ridges instead of rows; that makes it so easy to count! Periodically there is a box with helpful hints and links.
There are a few opportunities for learning in this fun cowl. You will learn how to make an invisible increase in garter stitch from Brooklyn Tweed and how to seam in garter stitch from Very Pink Knits. If you choose to add the Lava Flow detail, you’ll find instructions on how to duplicate stitch. If the YouTube link doesn’t work, you can search YouTube for Duplicate Stitch and choose the video that you like the best!
To create the fade effect of the cowl, you will work with two strands of fingering weight yarn at once. It’s always fun to see the color change as you drop one strand and add another strand to the first one! The pattern calls for four colors but you could do it with less if you so desire.
We encourage you to have a good time digging through your stash to find a skein or two of fingering weight that you’ve been saving for just the right project. Bring your yarn into the shop and we’ll be happy to help you come up with choices for the rest of your fade colors!
© Caitlin Hunter
We love supplementing stash yarns that you want to use! Recently someone came in needing a color for Navelli, designed by Caitlin Hunter. She had already been stash diving and found two colors that she wanted to use for the colorwork portion and needed yarn for the main color. It was like going on a scavenger hunt around the shop to find the perfect one!
Once you knit one of Maxim Cyr’s designs, we think you’ll want more because of the way they are written. Volcano Trail Cowl is a great one to start with!
Happy Knitting!
Jenny