Fired Up cowl | PDXKnitterati

I had a fabulous time at Red Alder Fiber Arts Festival last weekend. I taught 4 classes: Brioche Pastiche, Brioche Doctor, Embellished Brioche (brioche + assigned pooling), and Fun Stitches for Assigned Pooling. I was in my technique heaven!

Andrea wore her Whale Conga Line to Assigned Pooling class. I love seeing finished projects from previous classes!

Katherine wore hers, too! And I loved wearing my Seagull Flight shawl from Brioche Knit Love. (Seagull Flight pattern is still on sale for 15% off with code FLOCK through February 24.)

It was fun to have Lily Chin teaching on this coast! I usually see her in NYC.

The marketplace was full of goodies, as usual. And I feel like an influencer: Last year I asked several dyers if they had assigned pooling yarns, and I only found one.

Tara from Stranded by the Sea gave me the yarn that turned into Fired Up last year (see it over her shoulder?), and had lots more pooling yarn this year in both fingering and worsted weight.

I picked up some Starry Night to demo in my assigned pooling class, and also picked up sparkly yarn…and chocolate.

Phat Girlz Fibre also had pooling yarn, and Ashley took my pooling class to make the most of it.

Dragonfly Fibers/Canon Hand Dyes had gradient and rainbow assigned pooling minis (very cool).

And Northwest Yarns had assigned pooling yarn AND my books, which we sold out. Woohoo!

Greta showed me her Portland Frog Hat. I’m getting to ya!

I also loved Susan’s little frog hat in the Runway Rubber Duck contest. He took 3rd place, yay!

Debbie’s duck took Top Duck and Fan Favorite. The small scale lace and bead shawl plus the red hat were well done.

Anna-Lisa’s group won the Top Flock award with this Olympic themed team.

And Mr. New Beginnings at the train station modeled my Fired Up Cowl.

I had a great time teaching, socializing, shopping, and knitting.

But perhaps brioche plus pooling isn’t the best choice for knitting by the fire during a late night game of Cards Against Humanity. I taught Brioche Doctor the day before, so I was definitely prepared to frog and get this back on the needles!

This morning I gave a presentation on Design Process and taught an assigned pooling class for the Greater Boston Knitting Guild; we had a fun 3 hours together! Let me know if your guild would like a presentation or class, too. Tomorrow I’m off to Spain to visit friends. DH is staying home with the cats. Hasta luego!

woman wearing a handknit cowl featuring assigned pooling motifs — Fired Up cowl

Fired Up and ready to go! Fired Up is a simple worsted weight cowl featuring an
assigned pooling Flame Motif on a stockinette stitch background. It is knit top down.

Yarn dyed for assigned pooling, black with rainbow color accents

Choose a worsted weight yarn that is dyed for assigned pooling, and cast on for some fun!

Detail of stockinette stitch with colorful assigned pooling flame motifs

Two kinds of assigned pooling make this cowl shine: the Flame Motif, and colorful purl bumps.

Colorful hand knit cowl featuring assigned pooling flame motifs

Simple shaping at the center front creates cozy coverage over your shirt’s neckline. The cowl
ends with a reverse stockinette edge to keep the bottom from curling up.

Tara Roberts of Stranded by the Sea gave me this yarn at Red Alder Fiber Arts Retreat, and I knew exactly what it wanted to be. It took me a few tries to figure out how to best make the Flame Motif, but once that was sorted, it flew off my needles!

This pattern is available on Ravelry, link here. It’s also available on Payhip, link here. Use coupon code FLAME for 15% off through April 21, 2025 on either site.

Fire away? Flame on? Have fun!