Gills Neck Gaitor
Gills Neck Gaitor
I’ve been wanting to experiment with designing some men’s neckwarmers, and had the perfect opportunity when Skacel Yarn Company sponsored a competition among the men attending the Men’s Fall Knitting Retreat which happens annually on the West Coast over Labor Day weekend. The challenge was this: Design a one skein project using HiKoo Simpliworsted yarn. All of us participants received a skein of royal blue yarn, and had a few weeks to come up with our designs. There was to be one, maybe two, winners whose designs would be purchased by Skacel to be made available as free downloads on the Skacel website. It was fantastic to see the variety of designs that emerged, and Karin Skacel decided that the best thing to do was to purchase all the designs and make them available as free downloads. Here’s the link to all the patterns!
Back of Gills Neck Gaitor
My design is the Gills Neck Gaitor. The front top of the gaiter is designed to curl inward under the chin (see image above). There are half gussets (decreases on bottom, increases on top) that shape the flare of the gaiter. You can see that flare as the downward slope starting right under the ear in the photo to the right.
The Channel Island cast on makes small pointed bumps along the bottom edge, and is mirrored with small picot bind-off bumps along the top back edge.
This is a “tame” version of my original inspiration, but I am very pleased with it. Ever have a moment of wild inspiration when you envision a design that would be an outrageous runway creation? You know, one of those garments that looks totally extreme, where an idea is pushed to its limit? I did. And its theme is “Gills”. I have no idea where it came from, it sort of popped into my head, but I’m planning a whole series of these neckwarmers and cowls within that theme, some pushed to an outrageous limit. So think of this gaitor as Gills #1 and watch for more to come!