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Building Blocks is a colourful cowl built block by block using the entrelac technique.
It starts with one square at the bottom of the front and is worked bottom up in alternating tiers of the background colour and contrast colours (you only work with one colour at a time). You can use a separate colour for each contrast colour tier or you can mix colours in tiers in any way you want. Building Blocks is a perfect way to use small amounts of fingering weight yarn left over from other projects. I used Miss Babs Yummy 2-Ply Mini Bundle in Vivid with a grey background colourway.

The pattern contains a photo tutorial. No knowledge of entrelac knitting is required.

Size
Upper edge circumference: 72 cm/28.75 in.
Centre front length: 52 cm/20.75 in.
Centre back length: 16 cm/6.5 in.

Gauge (blocked)
Garter stitch: 22 sts and 44 rows = 10 cm/4 in, with main needle.
Gauge is not crucial for this project, but it will affect yardage and finished size if different from above.

Yarn
Background colour (BC):
1 skein of Miss Babs Yummy-2 Ply (100% superwash merino wool, 365 m/400 yds per 110 g skein) in Catbird (or a similar dark grey colourway).
Or 300 m/330 yds of fingering yarn in a solid or semi-solid colourway.

Contrast colours (CC):
1 skein of Miss Babs Yummy-2 Ply Toes (100% merino wool, 121 m/133 yds per 38 g skein) in Gentian.
1 set of Miss Babs Yummy-2 Ply Mini Bundle in Vivid (set of 10 mini skeins, 100% merino wool, 72 m/80 yds per 23-gram skeins). (I used 9 out of the 10 mini skeins.)

Or a total of approx. 300 m/330 yds of fingering yarn in several colourways of your choice; you can use yarn left over from other projects.

Or 300 m/330 yds of fingering weight self-striping wool, e.g. Schoppel Zauberball Crazy.

I used the following amounts of each of my chosen colourways of Yummy-2 Ply:
CC1: Dahlia (20 m/22 yds)
CC2: Spicy Papaya (10 m/11 yds)
CC3: Ugli (25 m/28 yds)
CC4: Sunny (25 m/28 yds)
CC5: Iantha (40 m/44 yds)
CC6: Hyperbole (35 m/49 yds)
CC7: Blue Poppy (40 m/44 yds)
CC8: Marine (30 m/33 yds)
CC9: Ergosphere (10 m/11 yds)
CC10: Gentian (30 m/33 yds)
Note: Even a slight difference in the gauge will change the yarn amounts used.

Needles and Notions
Main needle: 3.5 mm/US 4 circular needle, 100 cm/40 in long, or size to obtain gauge
Spare 3.5 mm/US 4 circular needle (any length, for joining only)
Tapestry needle

Skills Needed
Knit, purl, increases, decreases, picking up stitches (pick up and knit, pick up and purl), backward loop cast on.