Neck Warmer

Hooray! My first picture on this blog!
This is me wearing a neck warmer I finished a few days ago. I am giving it to Megan's mom for Christmas. It was really easy and fast to make and I will definitely give more of these as presents in the future. (Sorry to ruin the surprise, everyone.)

Materials:
1 ball Lion brand Wool-Ease Thick & Quick yarn (color sky blue)
size 17 needles
2 buttons
thread to match color of yarn
yarn needle and regular needle

I am not big on following patterns... I found a free neck warmer pattern online which told me approximately where to place the buttonholes and buttons, and that's all I followed. I wanted to make this wider than a normal (long) scarf so I cast on 18 stitches (for a scarf I would have done maybe 14). I knit about 2 inches, then made 2 buttonholes, then knit until the yarn ran out, wove in the ends with yarn needles, and sewed 2 buttons along one side of the scarf (I wrapped it around my neck to see where they needed to be to meet the buttonholes) using blue thread. I used big needles so this would go quickly, and 1 ball was the perfect amount. The finished length was just over 30 inches.

There is one weird thing, here is the stitch I used... got it from the free pattern. Instead of just knitting 1 stitch at a time, I knit 2: start knitting 1 stitch, but don't drop it onto the second needle. Knit the second stitch (you will be inserting the needle into both the new stitch and the one you just knit), then drop BOTH stitches onto the second needle. Because of this, you have to have an even number of stitches per row. I think is a nice difference from garter stitch... the bumps don't stick out as much and it made the fabric more full, making up for any holes that would occur with such large needles.

This neck warmer would be perfect to wear with a peacoat or anything else that leaves the neck and chest exposed. And it should be more windproof (in terms of blowing away) than a wraparound scarf. I hope she likes it! :)