Sew a Neck Warmer Tutorial – with Free Pattern

So after two weeks straight of Pattern Anthology tour posts, I thought just maybe some readers might be getting tired of kids pattern posts and be ready for a tutorial. And maybe one for women. Well I aim to please, y’all. Today I’m sharing this super simple neck warmer tutorial. (Though, sidebar: the Amaryllis Dress and Berkshire Blazer patterns are now available individually in my shop).

So if you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you might recognize this fabric. And if you’re new, well, check out this post to see how it all started and then this one for the sad story of why I started cutting up my sweater. And if you really don’t want to click around, well let’s just say I’m also a knitter (been knitting almost as long as I’ve been sewing) and I broke my own handknit heart and this neck warmer is part of my attempts to put it back together.

Plus…though I still love my new short hair (and, truth be told, I cut it EVEN SHORTER earlier this month – this picture is the current length) now my neck gets cold. And a girl can’t wear a scarf flapping around all the time.

Especially if you’re going to be horsing around.

I’ve mentioned before that I grew up with horses, and I actually still have two out at my parents’ ranch about 20 minutes away. But this horse is not mine. Although she’s not a complete stranger, either. She was raised and trained by my horsey partner in crime friend, Rachel, who was also kind enough to take these photos and let me play pretend cowgirl with her horse because mine were dirty and I didn’t have time to make them purty for blog photos.

Because, truth telling again – I would never dress this way to actually mess with my (very dirty and fat and out of shape) horses. I mean a white t-shirt? The only thing that’s going to mess that up faster than a baby or toddler is a horse. And in fact shortly after this shot this mare wiped her nose on my boob and then yeah, horse snot on my boob. So great for photos.

OK, so you want to know how very, very easy it is to make this neck warmer? There are 3 steps

1. Cut out your neck warmer using this pattern.
2. Sew button holes at the marks on one side
3. Sew buttons on at the marks on the other side

That’s it in a nutshell. Scroll down for more specifics, though.

Now the fancier tips. I used a felted sweater for this. If you don’t have a felted sweater, you can felt your own if you buy one that is at least 60% regular wool – handwash only is what you’d look for on the tag. To felt it, simply wash in hot water in the washing machine. The rest will take care of itself.

I also added single crochet border to my felted cut sweater piece. Just to make it prettier, and make the edges a little more sturdy and less prone to shedding. This is how you single crochet:

Or if the visual explanation isn’t helpful, try this tutorial about how to do the stitch or google – there are tons of tutorials and videos out there.

Or maybe you don’t want to use a sweater at all. That’s cool. You can use any knit fabric for this. In fact, if you use a stretch fleece, you don’t need to do anything to the edges. Or you could still do crochet along the fleece edges – or a blanket stitch with embroidery thread. Same goes for interlock knit. Or you could use two layers of jersey and sew them right sides together the turn and topstitch. Whatever. This is a pretty easy going project, which makes it a great gift.