Knitted Summer Cowl

Believe it or not, I sometimes accumulate more embroidery floss than I can use in my cross-stitch projects. Through flea market purchases and generous donations from family members who are familiar with my embroidery floss habit, I recently ended up with about two dozen skeins of different shades of green. I decided to wind them into a ball--tying the ends together as I went--so I could knit the floss instead of stitching with it. The end result is this lightweight summer cowl, which reminds me of lacy seaweed and fishnets.

To give the knitted fabric an airy feel, I used large needles (size 9). I'm typically a tight knitter, so maintaining a loose gauge was the biggest challenge for me. You can make your scarf or cowl any size you like, but for this one, I began by casting on 55 stitches.

I then just worked in garter stitch, knitting every row. This gave the fabric an interesting texture and kept the edges from curling. When the knitting was about 28" long--and I was almost at the end of my ball of floss--I bound off, sewed the two short edges of the cowl together, and wove in all of the loose threads. (There were many!)

This was such a relaxing projects. After casting on, I didn't have to count or think about changing stitches--just knit, knit, knit! I love the combination of greens--sage, chartreuse, seafoam, spruce--but I would love to make another one in different shades--maybe blues, oranges, browns. Time to start building up my floss stash again!