Amplitude Cowl

I like cowls that are knitted flat. A technique that's better used on flat pieces than on pieces worked in the round is intarsia. Here's a new pattern for a knitted cowl with a wavy intarsia pattern in shape of a sinus curve. It's all in garter stitch and therefore very easy to knit.

This work by Knitting and so on is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.



Materials

• 100 grams of fingering weight yarn in color 1 (C1)
• 100 grams of fingering weight yarn in color 2 (C2)
• 3.5mm knitting needles - if you're using circulars you'll need another needle of roughly the same size (for grafting)
• a stitch marker
• a tapestry needle (for grafting)

Techniques and Notation

• Provisional CO: My favorite method for a provisional CO is the crochet provisional CO - it is shown in this Youtube video by New Stitch a Day.
• Intarsia: Changing colors with the intarsia technique - as shown in this YouTube video by knitwithpat; or this YouTube video by Francoise Danoy.
• Grafting in Garter Stitch: A technique to get an invisible (knitted) seam - this technique is shown in this YouTube Video by knittinghelp.com. 
• Throughout the pattern, the following notation will be used: k31 (C1); k29 (C2) means knit 31 stitches in color 1 and then 29 stitches in color 2 - i.e. color is indicated in brackets after the stitches and color changes are indicated by a semicolon.

Gauge and Size
9 ridges (i.e. 18 garter stitch rows) gave about 5 cm in height, and 11 stitches about 5 cm in width.
The cowl I knitted (with a total of 5 pattern repaeats) measures 24 cm in width and 140 cm in circumference.
If you have different gauge or want another width, cast on the appropriate (even) number of stitches and place the stitch marker in the middle of the row. To adjust for lenght, knit a different number of pattern repeats.

Instructions

Provisionally CO60 sts
Setup Row 1: (C1) k30, place marker (C2) k30
Ridge 1: (C1) k to m, k1, (C2) k to end;
   turn; (C2) k to 1 bef m, (C1), k to end
Ridge 2: (C1) k to m, k2, (C2) k to end;
   turn; (C2) k to 2 bef m, (C1), k to end
Ridge 3: (C1) k to m, k3, (C2) k to end;
   turn; (C2) k to 3 bef m, (C1), k to end
Ridge 4: (C1) k to m, k4, (C2) k to end;
   turn; (C2) k to 4 bef m, (C1), k to end
Ridge 5: (C1) k to m, k5, (C2) k to end;
   turn; (C2) k to 5 bef m, (C1), k to end
Ridge 6 = Ridge 5
Ridge 7: (C1) k to m, k6, (C2) k to end;
   turn; (C2) k to 6 bef m, (C1), k to end
Ridge 8 = Ridge 7
Ridge 9: (C1) k to m, k7, (C2) k to end;
   turn; (C2) k to 7 bef m, (C1), k to end
Ridge 10 = Ridge 9
Ridge 11 = Ridge 9
Ridge 12: (C1) k to m, k8, (C2) k to end;
   turn; (C2) k to 8 bef m, (C1), k to end
Ridge 13 = Ridge 12
Ridge 14 = Ridge 12

Ridge 15 = Ridge 12

Ridge 16 = Ridge 9

Ridge 17 = Ridge 9

Ridge 18 = Ridge 9

Ridge 19 = Ridge 7

Ridge 20 = Ridge 7

Ridge 21 = Ridge 5

Ridge 22 = Ridge 5

Ridge 23 = Ridge 4

Ridge 24 = Ridge 3

Ridge 25 = Ridge 2

Ridge 26 = Ridge 1

Ridge 27: (C1) k to m, (C2) k to end;
   turn; (C2) k to m, (C1), k to end

Ridge 28: (C1) k to 1 bef m, (C2) k to end;
   turn; (C2) k to m, k1, (C1), k to end

Ridge 29: (C1) k to 2 bef m, (C2) k to end;
   turn; (C2) k to m, k2, (C1), k to end

Ridge 30: (C1) k to 3 bef m, (C2) k to end;
   turn; (C2) k to m, k3, (C1), k to end
Ridge 31: (C1) k to 4 bef m, (C2) k to end;
   turn; (C2) k to m, k4, (C1), k to end
Ridge 32: (C1) k to 5 bef m, (C2) k to end;
   turn; (C2) k to m, k5, (C1), k to end
Ridge 33 = Ridge 32
Ridge 34: (C1) k to 6 bef m, (C2) k to end;
   turn; (C2) k to m, k6, (C1), k to end
Ridge 35 = Ridge 34
Ridge 36: (C1) k to 7 bef m, (C2) k to end;
   turn; (C2) k to m, k7, (C1), k to end
Ridge 37 = Ridge 36
Ridge 38 = Ridge 36
Ridge 39: (C1) k to 8 bef m, (C2) k to end;
   turn; (C2) k to m, k8, (C1), k to end
Ridge 40 = Ridge 39
Ridge 41 = Ridge 39
Ridge 42 = Ridge 39
Ridge 43 = Ridge 36
Ridge 44 = Ridge 36

Ridge 45 = Ridge 36

Ridge 46 = Ridge 34

Ridge 47 = Ridge 34

Ridge 48 = Ridge 32

Ridge 49 = Ridge 32

Ridge 50 = Ridge 31

Ridge 51 = Ridge 30
Ridge 52 = Ridge 29
Ridge 53 = Ridge 28
Ridge 54 = Ridge 27

Repeat ridges 1 to 54 until the piece is as long as you'd like it to be, but end with ridge 53.
For the cowl in the pictures I knitted the sequence a total of 5 times.

Put the stitches of the provisional CO on another knitting needle. Hold ends together (see photo above). Then graft in garter stitch as follows: (C1) graft to marker; (C2) graft to end.


Chart
Below you can find the pattern as a chart - not the total width but the interesting bit around the stitch marker.

• The dark purple line shows where the stitch marker is.
• The pink line shows where to change the knitting color. As an additional help, the numbers in the chart show, how far from the marker the color change happens, i.e. how many stitches before or after the marker.
• The background color (light pink or weight) is only there to make it easier to count the rows. It changes every 5 rows.