A Cowl for Mum

Hello, hello!

You may recall that I made a cowl for Granny as a Christmas gift.  I was so pleased with the choice of wool I used that I wanted to make another for my mum as a Christmas gift.  I decided on a pretty blue wool and a lime green chunky accent button, then got crocheting.

One afternoon of work later and I had a finished Christmas gift (always a good feeling).  Here's a little detail shot of the button and stitching.

Not sure if it was her sort of 'thing' but at least it was an enjoyable way to spend an afternoon.

And as an aside, Granny loved her cowl.  She even wore it on Christmas Day when she was feeling a breeze around her neck sitting next to the heater vent.  :)

A Cowl for Granny

Hello, hello!

Recently I made this cowl and really loved the whole crocheting process and how the final project turned out - quick, easy and a beautiful result.  I mean, what could be better?  So I decided I should make a few for Christmas gifts.

There's this wool shop near my work that I've always been meaning to go into and look around.  Unfortunately, as I work ridiculously late into the evening most nights, they're never open when I pass by.  However, I finally found some time to pop in and I found this super yummy wool calling out to me:

I don't know what it is with variegated anything but I love it!  And this pink/orange/purple combination was just too gorgeous to not go home with me.  And they even sell those chunky plastic buttons I adore so I scooped up a paisley-shaped purple one to go with it.

A weekend later and this was the result:

OMG, I'm totally in love!  I'm definitely going to need to go back and buy more of that same wool because I seriously need a second cowl like this just for myself.

And this time I made sure the wool was a uniform consistency, which really helped with the ease of crocheting and knowing I was using the correct loops and counting accurately.  I also like how you can see the stitch pattern with this one; it adds to the visual interest.

So there's a little Christmas gift for Granny done.  Hope she likes it (or I just may roll her for it - ha!)  You can also see the cowl I made for my mum for Christmas here.

Crocheted Cowl

Hi, there - welcome back!

So having dipped my toe into the world of crochet, I've been itching for a new project - something still at the easy/beginner level but with a bit more spectacular result than the mug cosy (cute as they are).  Scarves are always a pretty safe project but I found something that took the boring scarf up a notch: the cowl.

During my quilt guild's exhibition, I bought some beautiful blue and turquoise wool from one of the vendors and decided it was destined to become a lovely autumn cowl.  Paired with a chunky hot pink button I'd picked up at my mum's quilt shop before she retired, I sat one Sunday, armed with a 10mm crochet hook and made this:

Squee!

Don't get me wrong, it wasn't as easy as I'd thought - well, the pattern was but the wool was not.  What I hadn't realised when I bought the wool was that it was the type at varies in thickness from chunky strand to thread-like width and back again.  That lack of uniform strand consistency definitely challenged my budding crochet skills but I persevered through and it all worked out in the end.

I went with the hot pink button to pick up the pops of pink scattered throughout the dye process.  It works really well with the natural holes created in the crochet.

Interested in making your own gorgeous autumn cowl?  Check out Fibre Flux's Margaret Button Cowl pattern.  As I said, it's a very easy pattern - you just need to learn two rows of stitches and you're set.  I also loved that she posted a YouTube tutorial at the bottom of the page to show the process; as a beginner and a visual learner, it was just what I needed.