Knitting is fun, but it’s even more fun to make up the pattern as well. At least, it is most of the time. When life is too complicated to keep up with, I have to go with simpler projects and follow someone else’s pattern in order to keep knitting. Fortunately, a simple alteration to the Cowgirl Cowlette pattern I found in the Fall 2017 issue of Spin-Off scratched my design-it-myself itch.

While I liked the cowl in the photo, I wasn’t sure I wanted all that length. But a quick look at the pattern showed me I could make the cowl much shorter by just binding-off instead of knitting the shaped part that drapes down the front.

My version of the pattern looks very different, partially because of the change I made to the pattern, but mostly because I used a relatively solid-colored yarn (totally unlike me, but I adore it). My Cowlette-ette was a great success, gave me the joy of knitting and the illusion of coming up with something original when I was too distracted by other things to actually draft a full pattern.

Have you ever altered patterns so your handmade project was even more your own?