I love the warm and rustic look of Norwegian Wood. It is a perfectly reversible, richly textured cowl knitted seamlessly in Half Fisherman's Rib with the Entrelac technique. Fun to make and cozy to wear, Norwegian Wood makes a perfect Christmas gift!
I used 12-stitch-wide motives in the pattern to create big and bold, interweaved blocks. Feel free to make the motives smaller. I think an 8-stitch repeat will be attractive, too.
The Half-Fisherman's Rib stitch pattern is very straightforward. Nevertheless it creates interesting textural and visual effects on the knitted fabric, with the right side and wrong side look and feel dirrent. One side looks "rough", whereas the other side is "smooth".
Since I tried to be playful with the pattern, I alternated between the rough and smooth sides to be used as the right side for my entralec cowl. If you look closer, you will see that the cream color motives has the rough side up, and the brown color motives has the smooth side up. But since the cowl is perfectly revisible, when you turn to the "wrong" side of the cowl, the pattern is actually flipped. It's the kind of subtelty that only the maker will know and appreciate, I guess.
In terms of yarn choice... I think any Aran or worsted weight yarn will work. I simply picked two natural toned, 100% wool yarn from my stash and started my experiment. The yarns are from different companies with different finishes, but it turned out that they blended well, and gave me the rustic, woody tone that I wanted.
I am ready for winter!
The pattern is now available on my site. You can also get the pattern through Ravelry. Happy knitting!