My latest adventure in knitting design is the Buttoned Cowl:

It has a pretty, textured design with an interesting and new-to-me stitch technique.  The k1 long entails putting your needle in between two stitches that are two rows below your needle and pulling up a “long” stitch.  Fun and keeps the knitting interesting.

There are six buttons and that gives you room to get creative or go the safe, blending-in route like I did!  This pattern actually started out with just three buttons…

…but I quickly realized, when I tried it on, that it was not going to work. There were big, open gaps between the buttons! And those buttons were a little more daring. My prototype had the buttonholes at the end (luckily), so I took it back and re-knit the design with 6 buttonholes.  I looks much better!

[And a quick note on buttons: I used a wool yarn which is fairly sturdy and can hold up to some heavier buttons, but if you use a less sturdy yarn such as alpaca, be sure to choose lighter buttons.]

Knit with worsted weight yarn (I used Cascade 220), this can also be made longer to make an infinity cowl. It is knit flat so you can make it any length you want!

If you are interested in purchasing this pattern, you can use the “buy now” button below and it will take you to Ravelry.

If you are local, I’ll be teaching this in a class at The Spinning Room in April! (It is not on the schedule yet, but it will be very soon so keep checking the classes page and then call to sign up.)

I would love to see your finished projects so get in touch and send me a picture:  liz at lizytishknits dot com

P.S. In case you are wondering, I did NOT knit this recently because I’m not supposed to be knitting much these days! I knit this last year and got stalled with the button issue.  If you know me, you know that I tend to have a little motivational trouble when it comes to sewing on buttons and I was somewhat discouraged about needing to fix the gap issue, which meant adding more buttons. More. But, clearly I overcame and persevered!