She crouches down, legs coiled as tight as springs, eyes sharp and tracking her prey, waiting for her chance to pounce. In one swift motion, she explodes from behind the brush and grabs the terrified, squealing creature, rending its belly open with her claws and teeth, gnashing and slurping, the deep red, warm blood dripping down her muzzle and off her claws. Full and satisfied with the delicious meal, she curls up around her leftovers and slumbers, legs twitching as she dreams of her next hunt.

Visceral is a syncopated two-color brioche cowl that is smooshy, warm, and versatile.

Visceral is a great pattern to pair two wildly different skeins of yarn, including handspun. Visceral was designed using two one-of-a-kind hand-dyed skeins that worked together well but also provide striking visual constrast. The pattern alternates which colors appear on the front (syncopated brioche) and uses simple increases and decreases to effect the lattice appearance.

If you’re like the designer, you get into a rhythm with patterns and don’t always look at the instructions. Which means you might have to rip back a few rows when you realize you missed an instruction (which the designer did multiple times while knitting this piece). So, the designer included notes to alert you to places you need to pay special attention to, where elements of the pattern shift to effect the lattice design.

The pattern is a 28-stitch repeat. If you use handspun or yarn other than Datura (or you just want to make the cowl longer or shorter), you can modify the cowl size by casting on more or fewer stitches.

The designer used US 4 needles and had 15 grams of yarn left over from each of the two skeins (30 grams total). The designer is an incredibly tight knitter. If you are an average or loose knitter, do choose one of the smaller needle sizes and check gauge to ensure that you do not run out of yarn.

The charted version is not available yet but will be this spring.