An Arm Knit Cowl

Brrrrr!  It has been so cold in Evanston this winter (January) that I wanted to make myself a wonderful chunky cowl.  And I wanted it fast.  Time to make another arm knit cowl in under an hour!

I purchased some really cool chunky yarn when I was in Chile a few years ago.  The yarn is Rueca Reginella and is 100% Chilean wool.  It is a thick and thin yarn that almost looks like it is handspun.  Of course, I have not been able to achieve anything this chunky from my own spinning endeavors!  There is no yardage information, probably because of the variable thickness of the yarn, but I decided to give the arm knit cowl a shot and see how big it ends up.  I can always unravel and make something else, right?

There should be enough for this project, since wrapping the skeins around my neck looked super cute, right?

I approximated a yardage by counting how the wraps of yarn.  Each 4 ft skein has 22 wraps, 88 feet = ~29 yards of yarn.  They weigh 97 and 96 g.  Since the ends are tied together on the skeins, I think that the yardage is actually more consistent than the weight.

Rather than wind these into balls first, I decided to just knit directly from my yarn swift.

I cast on 10 sts and started knitting.  I knit a few rows and realized that while stunning, there was NO WAY this was going to be long enough for a cowl.  10 stitches was WAY over 12" wide, and it didn't stretch lengthwise too much.  I was under 50% done with the yarn, but I decided to stop and start over with 5 sts to get something I could wrap around my neck more than once.

I knit until I ran out of yarn.  Well, Along with taking some funny pictures along the way.  Seriously, there was only like 3 - 1" sections left over.  Now this is a stash busting project!

The whole cowl is maybe 6 feet long, but ti depends on how it stretches.  It EASILY fits around my neck 3 times, but also looks cute at 2x.

I love this cowl because it keeps the integrity of the yarn.  It is so warm and chunky and so easy to toss on as I'm running out the door.  

Have you tried arm knitting yet?  What are you waiting for?!?