A few weeks ago, I discovered Broomstick Lace.

I had never heard of it before so I had to try it.  It involves these two tools:

My “broomstick” was the 35 mm knitting needle, and I used a size I crochet hook. Next, I followed a great free tutorial from craftsy.com:  How to Crochet Broomstick Lace.  After I played with the stitch a little, I decided it might be a great stitch for infinity cowl.

The tutorial provides very clear instructions, but here’s just a brief introduction: I made a chain and then single crocheted across.  Next I pulled up stitches onto the “broomstick”.  This is a little awkward and unwieldy at first.  I wasn’t sure how to hold the giant knitting needle and the hook, but with some practice I got it.  The tutorial has great photos which explain in detail how to do this.

After I put all the loops onto the needle, I got to slide them all off!  Then I crocheted them in groups of 5 (at least this is what I did for my pattern).  The end result looks like this:

I didn’t have an exact pattern to make a cowl in this stitch, so I had to play with width.  I made a chain of 40 stitches for the black cowl, and this made a width of 8 “clusters” (about 9 inches wide).  I wanted to try a more narrow cowl, so I made the red one by making a chain of 30 stitches, and this cowl was 6 “clusters” wide (about 7 inches).

I love the way this stitch looks.  It made for a very squishy and warm cowl.

I made the cowls about 64 inches long.  I used mattress stitch to sew the ends together, but I think whip stitch would work fine as well.

So the basic pattern is:

Supplies:  35mm Knitting needle. Size I Crochet hook.  Worsted Weight yarn.  I used some Lion’s Brand Heartland that I had in my stash.  (You could of course play with different weights too.)

Follow Craftsy.com Broomstick Lace tutorial to learn the stitch.

Wide cowl:  Begin with a 40 stitch chain.  There will be 8 clusters of 5 stitches.  Repeat the row to desired length.  I made mine 64 inches long.  Sew ends together.

Not Quite as Wide Cowl:  Begin with a 30 stitch chain.  There will be 6 clusters of 5 stitches.  Repeat the row to desired length.  I made the red one 64 inches long as well.  Sew ends together.

I couldn’t get any great pictures of me modeling the cowl so I asked Davey to help me. He was being silly because I asked him for a big grin.  I got it.

I highly recommend trying out broomstick lace.  It’s a fun variation of crochet, and I really love the look of the stitch.  It works great for an infinity cowl as well!