Malabrigo quickies: Ammaliante Cowl
August’s Quickies pattern is a stunning cowl designed by Paola Albergamo.
Paola is a knitwear designer from Rome, Italy. Her work is inventive, colourful and fun and her main field of interest are clever and creative ways to achieve colorwork, such as slipped stitches, mosaic, marlisle, “filigree” or short rows knitting.
Another area she likes to explore are unusual constructions and often she combines the two things together. This makes her patterns quirky and sometimes atypical, but never boring!
Paola was gracious enough to answer some questions about her design and her design process. You can find the pattern https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/ammaliante on Ravelry or https://payhip.com/b/WfFQR on Payhip
Mechita in Whale's Road and Oro colorways
1: What is your favorite part of your Quickies design and why?
Ammaliante is a lovely cowl worked in the round with a basic construction where the main focus is the unusual stitch pattern and, obviously, the yarn.
The stitch is surprisingly easy to work, but still interesting and not boring. And the result is absolutely enchanting (ammaliante in Italian).
2: What should knitters pay attention to when working this pattern? Do you have any tips or tricks that will make knitting this pattern easier?
This pattern is already quite easy, because the stitch pattern is “mosaic based”, meaning that it’s worked using only one color at a time. The colorwork is achieved with the use of slipped stitches and simple minicables. All the necessary tips and tutorials are included in the pattern, so there’s no need for a special preparation before jumping into the actual knitting.
The only thing a knitter should pay attention to is choosing a color combination that they like. My suggestion is for two colors with a good contrast and a CC lighter than MC, to make the colorwork stand out.
3: What does your design process look like?
My design process doesn’t seem to have specific rules: sometimes it starts from the construction of an item, sometimes from an outside inspiration (landscapes, art, architecture..), sometimes with a stitch pattern.
From the first idea to the finished pattern the design can change substantially, via drawing, swatching, selecting colors etc. Definitely it’s not a straightforward path for me.
4: Was there any particular inspiration you had when creating this piece?
In this specific case, the process started experimenting with mosaic & cables. I discovered this fun combination a year ago or so and since then I used it in a couple of designs already. I think that the wonderful Malabrigo colors are fantastic for this technique, so when I saw the call I immediately thought to submit something easy that would showcase both the technique and the yarn.
5: What is your favorite color in Malabrigo’s catalog?
Good question! The answer is made even more complex because the same color looks very different on various yarn bases. The two colors I chose for this project (Whale’s Road and Oro) are definitely in my favorites, but they are not the only ones and the number of my favorites is constantly increasing.
6: What is the one thing you wish people knew about you as a designer?
Most of my designs look much more complex than they are in reality!
In addition to that, all my latest patterns include photo tutorials and links to video tutorials, to make it easier to try new techniques or improve your skills.
Be sure to check Paola out in the following places:
Social Media Profiles
IG: @paolaknits
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/KnittingPaola/
Ravelry ID: Paola Albergamo
You can find the pattern:
Ravelry: https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/ammaliante
Payhip: https://payhip.com/b/WfFQR
