This is a pattern recipe for a snug and stretchy twisted turtleneck cowl. It is more in the vein of “general directions with tips and ideas—knit it how you like to get what you want” rather than in the vein of “do exactly this to get exactly that”.

The pictured red cowl (with the glass head and/or the gray background) knitted with Malabrigo Lace used about 32 grams/300 yards.

Exact gauge isn’t as important as getting the fabric and size that you want.

I recommend being very comfortable with your preferred provisional cast-on and with kitchener stitch/grafting.

If the twists are arranged at one end, this can be worn as a hat or pushed back as a wide headband with a hole to accommodate a ponytail.

A few knitters had expressed interest in my experimental project, and I thought I’d go ahead and write it up put it out. It hasn’t been test-knitted, and so far I’ve only knitted it once, but I plan on knitting it again sometime and adding photos of some of the fiddlier steps involved. I hope that if you go ahead and try this out, you’ll note what you did in your Ravelry project so that others can see and benefit! (Many thanks to loopysue for the helpful project notes, photos, and especially the diagram!)

October 2015 -
Thanks to the yarn shop Yarn for the City in Moscow for the Russian translation! They also made several versions with sock yarn, and those can be seen here.