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| Cozy neck cowl... |
My version is cut from the bottom hem of a long duster style fleece vest that I've never worn. (It was one of those gifts from hubby a few years back.)
It's deceivingly easy to make and should take no more than a couple of hours of your time. (I'm the sort who will over-estimate the time required to sew something, since every time I see a pattern listed as "make this in twenty minutes!", my reaction is, and yes, it will look like it was made in twenty minutes.)
Before I go any further, let me say that this is a "must have" if you live some place where you might get this sort of forecast for over a week:
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| My local forecast for January 14... |
[FYI, that "feels like" temperature of -50C is the equivalent of -58F. Hard to believe that at the same time, on the same planet, fires are burning in a heat wave with a difference of almost 100 degrees, but there you have the undeniable truth.]
Even if you're not outside in that weather, being indoors can still be chilly and having this around your neck gives you instant warmth. Take my word on this. You can be wearing a t-shirt underneath and you'll still feel toasty warm.
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| Keeping your neck toasty warm... |
I recently gave away a whole bunch of scarves to a local charity (so I can't do a proof of concept), but I can totally see taking a couple of fleece and flannel scarves that may otherwise not be in favour any more and upcycling them into this. All you need are a couple of strips of material measuring 8" x 30" and some buttons.
Here's this long vest thingie that I started with. Even though it's a size S(mall), it feels bulky and big. It may not seem obvious from the photo, but the garment overwhelms the wearer in a completely unflattering way.
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| Time for a recycling project... |
Therefore, I did not hesitate to cut into it once I got the idea to make this project. (I may ultimately rejig the rest of it to arrive at a short jacket, but that's a thought for another day.)
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| Cutting a rectangular slice out of the back... |
For some reason, I thought it was made out of two layers; i.e., a regular fleece on top and a furry substrate as the lining. Turns out it's a fleece with a furry backing.
So in this case, I didn't even have two pieces of material. All I needed to do was sew a standard hem at 1/2" around the three raw edges and then reinforce with another line of stitching at 1/4".
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| It's just a straight piece... |
Because my strip of material had a couple of seams in it, I decided to quilt one end of it, to add some texture.
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| Quilted... |
With the end turned at an angle, the quilting ends up being a cross hatch diamond pattern.
I had to break out my button hole attachment for the first time in a few years. Good thing that I still have my Kenmore manual to confirm that I'm using it correctly.
The Sew4Home tutorial provides exact placement for the buttons and button holes if you need them. I measured for one of the button holes and then eyeballed the remainder. Locations for buttons are easily established once the holes are made.
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| Three perfect buttons... |
In my bag of buttons, I had exactly three matching silver toned buttons that were the perfect fit for this.
One thing I will mention is that if your material is extra stretchy like mine was, make your button holes on the small side. I anticipated the stretchy-ness and the holes are just right.
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| Alternate buttoning... |
For a slightly different look (see photo above), leave the top button undone, flip the top part down and use the first button hole to latch onto the second button.
After making this one, I had an idea and dug into my "slightly used" fabric pile to retrieve this:
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| Leftover fleece from an old project... |
It's what's remaining from a neck warmer of a different sort that I made for hubby a few years ago. A portion of it was cut out to make this head band thing instead, so I was left with this wavy piece of fabric (which is part of my Spoonflower Canadiana collection). It's straight along one edge, so I figured it should work for this project.
All I had to do was zig-zag it around the raw edges and add buttons and button holes.
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| A similar neck cowl made out of regular fleece... |
The dimensions are not quite the same as for the Sew4Home project (and I only had two matching buttons that I wanted to use) but this shows you that in sewing, you don't always have to follow strict rules and patterns.
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| The fabric is different on the other side, but it's not reversible... |
And while this is not as warm as the furry version, I'm happy to have found a use for my leftover fleece at last.
To access the complete tutorial, go to Sew4Home.com and do a search for "button up neck cowl".
Those weather graphics are quite the reality check! And I thought that it was frigid on my mountain top in northern New York...
ReplyDeleteI've been thinking of frogging an old Knitting project to knit a neckerchief, but this looks like a saner project!
For sure, this is way easier than knitting! And our temps have returned to bearable levels... although the great unknown of February is still to come.
DeleteHard for me to comprehend temperatures as cold as you experience. Even half way between our two at the moment I'd find cold. We had a lovely coolish day today... 28ºC - very refreshing after the hot days we've been having.
ReplyDeleteA great way to repurpose hubby's gift so it's functional and looks good.
in a light weight fabric this would make a great neck wrap for protecting your neck from seat belt scratches and discomfort.
ReplyDeleteThe fabric would likely need to be able to "stand up" in order to provide the protection you're describing, but it's something to try. Thanks for stopping by. ^̮^
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