Katniss Huntress Cowl

Katniss Huntress Cowl

Are you like me? Did you sit up straighter and say Wow! when you saw the funky asymmetrical cowl that Katniss wore in the Hunger Games? It’s pretty awesome, isn’t it? 

I looked for a pattern off and on a few months after seeing the movie and never saw an inspired version that really gave me the same shivers as the original. A lot of skilled knitters have been busy designing in the interim, trying to capture that same shivery impact.

The original cowl was not even knit. It was woven. Crazy, huh? It certainly looks knitted. More than that, there are some versions out there now that come mighty close to that Katniss cowl. Pretty impressive. 

The challenge was there and a few designers came up with knitted versions that come mighty close. Most of them incorporate both crocheting and knitting but they did it, they managed to knit what was originally made on a loom. I find that mighty impressive. So many talented people out there.

It's the rope-like cords forming the cowl that I find most striking. I've seen some versions where the cords are simulated with alternating rows of garter or reverse stockinette. I was thinking welting could have been used to form the cords, before finding out that it was woven. I think an icord or welting would generate the same effect. The rest looks pretty basic. It's the cords that look tricky and to me what makes the original cowl stand out.

I hope to try my hand at making a version as soon as I have a bit more time. I already got the yarn. It really strikes a primal chord inside me, that raw, primitive covering with its purely functional purpose.

Staring Back at Terminology Fear

Let’s face it, knitting has many categories of fear.

There’s the fear of circular knitting needles. Speaking from experience, how many of us beginners looked at circular knitting needles and cringed? What was up with that idea of no end, just two points and a skinny little strand of cable that I was convinced would cut right through the yarn. If nothing else, I was sure that the live loops would shrink and I wouldn’t be able to get them up onto the main needle part at the end. Fear. I avoided circular knitting needles for years.

Kind of like discovering continental style, once I used circular knitting needles for the first time I saw that smiling woman at the open door, waving to come on in to this wonderful world of circular knitting needles. Oh, such lovely dears, the circular knitting needle. Once you work out the kinks from being held in that unforgiving packaging, that cable makes life so much easier.

Double pointed needles. Argh!! Little pointy sticks sticking out all over the place. The first time I used them I was convinced that all the live stitches would drop off. They didn’t. Well, not on the wood ones. I have some metal DPNs that it’s come close a few times. It was just fear holding me back though. People have been knitting with these for probably thousands of years. There's a reason they exist. Handy little buggers, DPNs. Don't worry about magic loops just yet. DPNs should be in everyone's knitting arsenal.

Then there’s gussets, putting stitches on stitch holders to save for later work, cables and cable needles, and even knitting in the round. I personally never feared knitting in the round. I took the plunge into circular needles and DPNs in order to work in the round. Never purl again!!!! Who wouldn’t get excited about knitting in the round. Okay, there are times when purling has to be done in the round as well but not very often once you get through the ribbing. But let’s face it, for beginners those are all scary terms.

Once we understand each individual technique it loses its stranglehold on our fears. Simply taking each new thing one step at a time really shows how not scary it is. I always recommend to anyone I teach or who asks about learning knitting, buy a cheap, cheap skein of yarn and knit, rip it out, knit, rip it out, knit. How many of us go to the local yarn store and spend $20 on a single skein of glorious yarn that tickles our senses and we go home and we look at that expensive, lovely, special yarn and freeze up because we are afraid of messing up with that awesome, expensive yarn?

Practice on cheap, rough, scruffy, tough, yet smooth yarn. Spend $2-$3 on some yarn at the large chain craft store or department store and mess up as much as you want. It doesn’t matter. Just rip it out again. Be sure to buy a smooth yarn for this foray into throwing caution to the wind. My niece decided to teach herself crocheting and went and bought some boucle yarn. Of course she gave up. Experienced crocheters and knitters pull their hair out when working with boucle. All those little loops and strands get caught and hide your stitches so you can’t even see what you’re doing.

So get out there, armed with your smooth $3 yarn, and make samples of everything you want to do. Make a gusset. Do a short row. Make a cable. Pick up stitches. Lost track of how many rows between cable crossings? Rip it out. Holes showing between short rows because you forgot to wrap the last stitch? Rip it out. This is your classroom. The cost of $3 for yarn that will only be used to make samples is quite a fair price to learn all the techniques that would scare us into immobility with our special $20 yarn. Save that $20/skein yarn for the project that always scared you before you mastered the technique with the fearless cheap yarn practicing.

Learning to Knit

I was about 10 or 11 when I learned to crochet. At some craft event at school when I was about 9 we learned to make a crocheted chain with a finger and yarn. I can still remember that thrill of having made “something” out of almost nothing. It took a year or two before I picked up a crochet hook and took the next step from making chains to that first row into the foundation chain. I’ve crocheted a lot of things over the years; afghans, toys, candy dispensers, and even clothes.

I always wanted to learn how to knit because to me crocheted clothes just didn’t cut it (crocheted clothes designs have come a long way since then) but I couldn’t find anyone who knew how to knit. So when I was sixteen years old I went to the library and checked out a knitting dictionary and taught myself how to knit.

I had a rudimentary understanding of knitting and the only method shown in that library book was American (English) style. It took forever to knit something. I always joked that I could crochet a house in an hour but it took six months to make a knit scarf. If I was in the middle of a row of knitting I could not stop until I got to the end. Nothing could interrupt my finishing that row or I was lost. Worse, those knit scarves curled all up. Drove me nuts. My second knit project was a T-style sweater. Yeah, I tend to jump in with both feet. I’d made a scarf, a sweater was a logical next project. It turned out all right. Except it was a size 3X and I was a size small at the time.

I never enjoyed knitting. I was only doing it because I liked how it looked better than crocheted for some things. Well, many things. I love my crocheting but it just doesn’t work as well for clothing, including accessories. I remember when my mom made us crocheted mittens when we were young. The crocheted mittens were forced upon us. She didn’t care that we couldn’t move our thumbs or that there were holes letting cold air in, never mind the fact that they were plain ugly. The crocheted mittens got lost very quickly.

My knitting needles grew dusty. Somehow over the years a few lost their mates also. Not sure how that happened but I have many knitting needles that are all alone. I think I used them to push stuffing into sewn dolls or toys and they never saw their other half again.

Then about six years ago I saw a show on PBS called Knitting Daily. That show inspired me. Truly inspired me. The first time I saw continental style knitting I had to learn it. Oh, what a difference it made! It took some practice but it didn’t take that long to get the feel of it. I no longer had to let go of the right knitting needle, take the yarn, put it over the needle tip, pick up the needle again, knit the stitch, and start over again. All I had to do was hold the yarn in my left hand and knit away. Ribbing was no longer a nightmare that took me a month for 2” around a 7-8” circumference. To work ribbing I just moved my first finger back and forth about an 1”.

That was the smiling woman at the open door, waving me to come on in to the world of knitting. Continental knitting for me was the magic turning point. Suddenly I could knit a scarf in time increments of hours or days instead of months or years. That was just the first step though. Gaining a better understanding of knitting really made a difference. Understanding things cuts back on the fear. Let’s face it, it’s fear making us drag our feet in so many things.