So, I collaborated with Malabrigo Yarns on this little thing. Crosstown Traffic is its own very definite thing.

I love really variegated yarns but I find it hard to find good patterns for them. What looks amazing in the skein can be hard to handle when knitting - and so I came up with this cowl pattern. The variegated yarn is paired with a semi-solid which lets the wild colours shine in small, controlled bursts.

The end result is a cowl with a very relaxed, very urban feel. It uses two skeins of Malabrigo Twist - an aran-weight yarn which I took up to 6mm (US 10) needles. I added icord edgings for extra sophistication - such an easy technique with stunning results - but the yarn really just speaks for itself.

The name comes from an old Jimi Hendrix song - Crosstown Traffic (link isn't very good, sorry). I was busy sketching when my partner David came home humming the song. It seemed an obvious name for the pattern: easy to remember, relaxed feel and just a bit streetwise.

I chose the colour combination of Twist in Zinc (a matte, pinkish/blue grey) and Plena (azure blue, deep purple, bright yellow and green!) for the sample, but any leftfield combination of semi-solid + variegated colours will work. Because it's a Malabrigo Quickie, the cowl takes just two skeins - one of each.

Stashbusting. I like that.

Finally, let me just leave you with the initial sketch I did for this design. It was a lot of fun trying to capture the feel of the sketch in the pattern photos - I think we did well.

I live in a lovely, leafy part of Glasgow (which you'll know if you follow me on Instagram) but Glasgow City Centre is frequently used as a film location 'lookalike' for major US cities in films like World War Z, Cloud Atlas, and The Dark Knight Rises. It was very cool to hike down some of the back alleys and find some awesome photo shoot locations

Initial sketch for Crosstown Traffic.

I have a busy few months ahead of me - it's workshop season - but I always love to see what you make using my patterns. Make sure to share your photos with me. I'm also just a tweet away - and I'll be sharing plenty of details from my forthcoming travels up & down the country.