Cowlin' Around

A few years ago for Christmas I made my boyfriend a scarf. A lot of work went into this scarf. I bought a drop spindle to spin wool roving into yarn, but hadn't quite picked up on the technique, and so my yarn came out very thick.

I collected a sackful of acorns off the sidewalk and received a fair amount of strange looks, smashed them with a hammer and tried not to be too grossed out by the wormy ones.They soaked in water for a few days with some rusty thing and I dyed the yarn to what I hoped to be a charcoal gray, but turned out to be ever-so-slightly gray. I knitted the yarn into a scarf, but it had come out so thick that there was no way I would have enough yarn to make a decent scarf.

So I unraveled it and wove it (because I have a loom!), which helped with the length a little. But a 3 foot scarf really isn't that substantial, and not long enough to wrap around a neck really. I wasn't super happy with it, but Josh liked it and it was his only scarf, so that was good enough. I've wanted to make a better one, but I have a love/hate relationship with knitting.

Recently, though, he asked if I could make him a cowl. And here it is!

This is not my boyfriend, this is Poppy modeling the Deer & Doe Lupin Jacket. She wear the cowl well though!

This is high on my list of the easiest things I've ever made. I love the new Merchant & Mills wools (and so did Josh). The wool I picked for this, called Flat Cap, is a little scratchy so I backed it with a Robert Kaufman flannel with a cool herringbone weave. The flannel is narrower than the wool, at 44", so that became the length of the cowl.

Here's a rundown of what I did, if you want to make yourself.

- You'll need 1/4 yard each of wool and flannel. Cut the pieces down, if necessary, to be 44" long.

- With right sides together, sew the rectangles together using a 1/2" seam allowance. Be sure to leave an opening to turn the cowl right side out, which you will sew up by hand.

- Sew a buttonhole at one corner of the rectangle. I made mine more fun by making it diagonal!

- Wrap it loosely around your neck to see where the buttonhole hits to give you an idea of button placement. If you don't feel like doing that, I sewed my button 1 1/2" from the top edge (same edge as the buttonhole), and 19" in from the short edge opposite the buttonhole.

Stay warm!

(This is the Colette Albion Coat in a super warm wool meltonwool melton. You can read about it here)