Neck comfort

The Pacific Northwest breeds a certain kind of bundle-upper. People like me love the look of warm scarves, which is great because for half the year, we have an actual reason to wear them. And not just when we're wearing our coats, either. We will keep them on all day. Even the draftiest room can be bearable when you've got a scarf coiling up your neck. And when you're holding out until your house has reached a consistent temperature of 58 degrees before reactivating your furnace, sometimes a girl just needs her knitted goods to get through.


I think a cowl neck is kind of like a dickie for cold weather. It looks like a gorgeous sweater coming out of your coat, but when you take the coat off, you've just got a big sweater necklace. Unlike the dickie, however, a cowl neck looks nice as an outer layer as well. (And that's why dickies are the butt of fashion jokes - the thought of someone wearing only the dickie is not just comical but horrifying. With cowl necks, no one screams when you take off your coat. Usually.)


The designer of this easy pattern took her inspiration from a $700 Burberry cowl neck. That's the blessing of being a knitter - you know better than to spend that much on something you could make yourself, in any color or material you want. This is just a series of big cable chunks, so it doesn't look so much cabled as it does twisted, which lets it overlap nicely on your neck.

My neighbors probably saw me taking this self-portrait. Couldn't pass up the rainy day light.