Adapting Perforate

Usually on the Wednesday after a pattern launch I’d be telling you all about the inspiration for the pattern, where the idea came from, and how it all came about.

This week is a little bit different. Monday’s pattern launch – Perforate Mitts – were designed to match an existing design, the Perforate Cowl, which means you already know where the idea came from. (I’m hungry just thinking about it.)

There were a few changes, of course – the eyelets needed to run in opposite directions on each hand, which meant a little tweak to flip the pattern and some checks to make sure they lined up perfectly – but really, I started these mitts knowing exactly what I wanted and exactly how to get it.

So instead what I’d like to do today is give you a guide on how to modify the Perforate Cowl. You see, the mitts only need about 40g of yarn, and the cowl was designed to use 200g exactly, which means making both the mitts and the cowl will give you leftover yarn at the end.

If you love oddments in your stash, this probably isn’t the post for you. But if you like a nice clean set that uses up all the yarn you’ve bought, this post will help you achieve that. Once you’re done reading here, the only question will be whether you want to use 200g of yarn, or go large with 300g.

So. Let’s start with the obvious. Perforate-the-cowl is designed for 200g of yarn, so if you have 200g of yarn and want to make the mitts as well, you’re going to need to make it smaller. If you have 300g and want to make both cowl and mitts with no leftovers, you’ll need to make it bigger.

The question is, how much bigger / smaller?

The answer to that is quite individual, as it depends on exactly what yarn you’re using, what gauge you get, and whether you want to make the cowl wider / thinner / shorter / taller. But don’t worry – it’s pretty easy to work out. You just have to weigh your yarn a lot!

Let’s break it down

Perforate is 44 pattern repeats around (horizontally) and 5 pattern repeats high (vertically). It also has a bottom and top ribbed border.

When I knit mine, I aimed to use 200g yarn in total. It broke down like this:

14g for each ribbed border (28g)
34g for each vertical pattern repeat (170g)

This means I used 198g in total. It also means that I used 4.5g per horizontal pattern repeat.

When I knit the mitts, I used 36g. So, if I started with 200g yarn in total, I’d have 164g left to knit the cowl with.

164g divided by 4.5g per repeat means I could knit 36 repeats for the cowl. As the cowl is usually 168cm circumference, this means the finished adjusted cowl would be about 137cm.

If I started with 300g yarn in total, I’d have 264g to knit the cowl with.

264g divided by 4.5g per repeat means I could knit 58 repeats, which would be about 221cm around. That’s a really wide cowl – too wide, I think. It’d wrap around three times! Instead, if I had more yarn, I would make the cowl higher.

264g minus 28g for the top and bottom borders leaves 236g for the vertical repeats, which is almost enough for 7 repeats. I’d probably play it safe and add 6, and maybe do a couple of extra rounds on each set of ribbing to use up the extra.

How to adjust Perforate

1. Weigh your yarn

The first thing you need to do is weigh your yarn – just your yarn, no labels, so if you have them tucked in the middle of your cake, take them out first – and note down exactly how much you have.

2. Knit the mitts

Follow the pattern! There’s no need to make any adjustments here.

3. Weigh your yarn again

Weigh your yarn again and note down how much you have left.

4. Choose your alteration

You can adjust the cowl on the horizontal repeats (44), or the vertical repeats (5). (You can do both, but that’s quite advanced and not covered here!)

4a. Adjust horizontally

[Total remaining yarn] divided by 4.5 = number of repeats to cast on

Number of repeats x 3.8cm = approximate new size

4b. Adjust vertically

[Total remaining yarn] minus 28g for the ribbing = body yarn budget

[Body yarn budget] divided by 34 = number of repeats to work

(Number of repeats x 3.8cm) + 4cm = approximate new body height

5. Knit!

I recommend weighing your yarn after you’ve knit your first ribbing and again after your first vertical repeat, just to check that everything’s working out.