garter cowl

Cowls! I'm a little obsessed with them right now. Inconvenient, with Christmas looming, but I think this one might have gotten it out of my system.

I bought this Lorna's Laces Shepherd Worsted, in the Tuscany colorway, a month or two ago. I went to the yarn store looking for Dream in Color Classy because I wanted a skein of superwash
in a beautiful color to make a sweater for my impending niece/nephew. (Not that he/she is due until April, but you know how it is. The idea had taken up residence in my head, and that was that.) They didn't have any of the Classy, but the Lorna's Laces fit that particular bill as well, and the Tuscany was the most unisex colorway I could find. Then a week or so later, I happened to be back in the same store, and this time they did have the Classy. So I had this lovely skein of Lorna's Laces just for me. It started screaming "COWL!" at me and wouldn't let up, so I obliged.


I wanted something with buttons, that I could wear kind of loose and drapey, but not so drapey that it doesn't actually cover my neck very well. I poked around Ravelry a while, and found some nice cowl patterns for future reference, but not Exactly What I Was Looking For.

So in case you are looking for the same thing, here's the pattern for this one.

yarn: worsted/aran weight

needles: US size 9

notions: 3 1-inch buttons, tapestry needle

gauge: 17 st = 4 inches in garter stitch

Cast on 43 st. Knit, knit, knit until it is 16 inches long. To make the pretty selvedge edge in the above photo, slip the first stitch purlwise and purl the last stitch in every row.

At 16 inches, make the buttonholes: slip 1 purlwise, knit 4, bind off 3, knit 12, bind off 3, knit 12, bind off 3, knit 4, purl 1. On the next row, cast the stitches you bound off back on. (I know there's a jillion better ways to do buttonholes, so feel free to do them how you want to.)

Knit until your work is 17 inches long, and bind off loosely. Ta-da!