Scarf Turned Into A Buttoned Cowl by Staci Wendland

I recently discovered my yarn impediment skipped a generation.  I bravely gave my daughter a knitting book and a skein of yarn for Christmas.  I fully expected it to go into a storage box, never to be seen again.  But then something magical happened.  She dug out the knitting needles and, barely glancing at the book, started on a scarf.  I keep expecting it to disappear, but she kept at it.  She started carrying it out of the house with her and telling me stories of teaching a friend to knit too.  They visited craft stores and a local yarn shop together.  She finished that scarf and has barely left the house without wearing it since. 

Now, I’m still using the loom.  It works for me and I enjoy using it once in a while.  Around the same time I bought her yarn, I grabbed a skein of my own.  It’s a bulky so it goes quickly, and is so pretty.

I went with an oatmeal color.  I made a short, flat scarf using a basic design.  Really, anything you like would work.  I just kept going until I ran out of yarn, which ended up about 32” long and 5” wide.  I dug four 3/4” buttons out of my stash, but if I were going to buy some specifically for this I might go a little larger.

I overlapped the scarf the way I planned to wear it and marked the four spots where the buttons would go with pins. 

I carefully transferred my marker pins to the bottom layer, then straightened them out a bit so they were lined up properly.

I used embroidery floss to stitch a button at each mark.  The mistake I made was not sliding something under the button as I stitched so there would be some room underneath for buttoning the other layer on.  I worked the thread ends inside the scarf.

To button it, I just overlapped it again and pushed the buttons through the top side in the appropriate places.  For the sake of the scarf I will probably leave it buttoned and slip it over my head when I wear it.  I’m not sure how it would hold up to stretching over the buttons repeatedly.  

As I was writing this, my daughter walked into the room with a ball of yarn I donated to her newly formed stash and asked “What did you want me to make for you?”  I have a knitter!

- Staci Wendland