A Handmade Season of Giving - The Chunky Crochet Cowl Infinity Scarf
Michelle Burke
Believe it or not, I am starting this Handmade Season of Giving series with a gift idea that isn’t sewn, but crocheted! Even if you don't crochet, no worries - read on! The Chunky Crochet Cowl Infinity Scarf is fast and easy to make and it looks so nice when it is finished. I really had fun making these, to the point that I made quite a few!
This is five of the eight scarves that I made to give as Christmas gifts.
I found this scarf while looking for gift ideas on Pintrest. Janna of JJCrochet has patterns for the Chunky Crochet Cowl Scarf (a shorter scarf) as well as the Crochet Cowl Pattern with Infinity Loop (a longer scarf) available for free on her website! I actually took what I liked from each of these two patterns to make my scarves. I liked the shorter cowl neck scarf because it uses less yarn and it is faster to make than the long one. I liked the infinity loop of the longer cowl scarf though. Basically I just made the short version (the Chunky Crochet Cowl Scarf) a little longer so that I could add a twist before sewing the ends together, making it an infinity scarf. I have details toward the bottom of this post explaining exactly how I made this change!
This scarf is a great beginner scarf, it only takes two different stitches to make and they are easy to learn! I learned the two crochet stitches needed to make this scarf by watching the two short videos Janna has made where she demonstrates how to crochet the two stitches.
To give you an idea of how easy this scarf is to make, I have crocheted before, but just afghans made solely using a basic chain stitch. Using Janna’s videos and practicing a little, I was able to quickly figure out how to make the Chunky Crochet Cowl Scarf. Once I had the stitches down, I could make one in between 2 and 2½ hours!
I recently visited my sister in Maryland. I crocheted a couple scarves on the flights to and from - a nice way to pass the time on an airplane!
The Cowl Neck Infinity scarf is also fairly economical too (depending on the yarn you choose to use) because you will need only one or maybe two skeins of bulky yarn for each scarf! Janna recommends Lion Brand Wool-Ease Thick & Quick Yarn for theses scarves. I used Wool-Ease Thick & Quick Yarn for most of my scarves and I also recommend it; it was easy to work with, I only needed one skein of yarn, I was able to get it at JoAnns and I think the scarves made of this yarn are beautiful.
My sister wearing her early Christmas gift - she loved it!
I varied how I made the scarf slightly because I wanted my scarves to be a little longer. Each of my rows has 65 stitches and after the Foundation Chain row, I crocheted another 10 rows using the Herringbone Half Double Crochet stitch. I found that with a total of 11 crocheted rows, I was still able to make a scarf with one skein of the Wool-Ease Thick & Quick yarn. The only other change I made was that before I whip stitched the ends together, I added one twist to the scarf to make it an infinity scarf.
I can't wait to give these scarves as gifts, I think my friends and family will love them! Now I just have to make one for myself!