Holy Cowl!

Cheesy, I know, but I’m going to go ahead and take Oprah’s job by talking about my new favorite thing: cowls. I don’t know what’s taken me so long to knit a cowl, but I’m so glad we found each other.

Alice Thelma

First of all, a cowl is incredibly cute. They come in all sorts of colors and sizes and volumes and that makes them so much fun to look at and wear. They can be dramatic and make a whole outfit, or demure so that other things can stand out. After being incredibly cute and luring everyone in, cowls are warm. They can be made long enough to twist and pile around your neck. They can have different colors which automatically gives them greater density and more warmth. As an added bonus they will never unwind from your neck or get their ends caught in your buttons or zippers.

Ucreate

Cowls can be a great teaching tool. All you have to do is cast on a few stitches on a circular needle, pick a technique – cables, lace, color – and knit enough rows to cover your neck. Worried about how that lace pattern will work out? Try it on a cowl. Have leftovers from another project? Make a cowl. Feel like mindlessly knitting in front of the television? How about a cowl. Impatient? Cowl.

The Gloss

If you’re feeling generous, cowls can make great gifts since they’re so fun, cute and easy. Scarves – a cowl’s big brother – are cute and functional, but you have to knit at least five feet of a pattern to make the scarf useful. That takes a lot of time and I get bored. Make a cowl instead; with all that extra time you can make a matching pair of gloves or a hat or some socks or… another cowl!

Classic Elite Yarns

Here’s when you shouldn’t be generous: When you’re dating the person. Don’t make that mistake; it never ends well. If you’ve dated them, are dating them or plan to date them get them a card, bake them a pan of brownies, don’t knit them a piece of clothing. I’ve made this mistake once with a boy with the initials JB (yes it was Justin Bieber, yes I had him first, yes I gave him to Selena Gomez) and I made a lovely black and white double knitted checkered scarf. Five and a half feet of a double thick scarf. Basically two scarves. Not worth it. I miss that scarf. Not JB. But if you are going to make that mistake, for the love of cowls take a picture! That’s right. I don’t even have a picture of this lovely creation. Like I said, it never ends well.