We live by a canal, and the ducks are the bane of our life. No amount of shouting, swearing and name-calling will stop them from pulling our trouser legs, pinching our ankles, gatecrashing the kitchen and having quacking contests at five in the morning. Of course, all this ranting here is just for show - I love the little blighters and I thought it was time for a monument to them.

The Mallards cowl features intarsia, pin tucks (cording stitch) and a cute box pleat at the bottom of the slightly elongated front. It’s partly lined to give the fabric more body, keep you warm, and make for more wearing options. The width can be adjusted by the little belt - tabs to hold the belt are knitted in.

The motifs are done as stranded intarsia - you should be familiar with both intarsia knitting and stranded knitting (including trapping floats). The smaller details are done in duplicate stitch. If fiddly multi-coloured intarsia knitting is not to your taste, feel free to do the motifs as a whole in duplicate stitch. Motifs are charted.

There are lots of ways of wearing this: loosely or gathered, top turned down or up, doubled to make a turtle-neck, back to front, belt buttoned at the front or the back.

You will need:

• 2 balls of col. 09 (amethyst), 1 ball each of cols. 01 (off-white), 06 (black), 07 (beige mix), 08 (brown mix), 13 (denim blue), 15 (green), 17 (yellow mix)
• circular knitting needle, 3 mm or size to obtain gauge, at least 80 cm long
• 2 double-pointed needles 3mm or slightly thinner
• 8 stitchholders or safety pins
• 6 buttons
• tapestry needle, darning needle, scissors, tape measure, glue or sticky tape (for the pattern chart)

You will need only small amounts of the colours used in the motifs, so you might want to use scraps rather than buying all colours. Sock yarn is a good option.

However, if you do decide to buy the original yarn, you might want to download my free pattern What the Mallards Left, which makes use of the leftovers from this pattern.

A big thank you to my lovely hair stylist Antonia for modelling.