No Sew Baby Cowl

This winter Penelope has worn a scarf or cowl pretty much every day.  I am a little nutty when it comes to keeping her warm, but its only for her health's sake.


Your body actually perceives cold as stress.  And when you are cold, your body spends energy keeping your organs warm and functioning and it diverts energy away from your extremities and immune system and other things.  There is also a bit of Traditional Chinese Medicine and even Aruvedic medicine that puts emphasis on keeping your neck warm to stay healthy. In China, they actually have pregnant women wear scarves in the summertime to keep them healthy...or so I have heard, I've never actually been to China.


And then there's the cutest factor.  Penelope always looks so adorable in her little cowls. Another added bonus: Penelope can't rip the cowl off, like a regular scarf, because its looped around twice. 


I have to give credit, where credit is due, I did not come up with this awesome idea.  A woman named Tara did.  You've heard of her before, she came up with this recipe that was a big hit. And I quoted her in yesterday's raw egg yolk post.  She made all of these for Penelope for her birthday and Christmas.

                                                 

I bought the dress I am using to make the cowl from a thrift store for 5 bucks!  I want to use the majority of it to make a pillow case dress, so I took one of Penelope's dresses and used it as a pattern to see how much I needed to save for the dress portion and how much I could use for the cowl portion.

This is so easy, it almost seems silly explaining it! All you do is take a big shirt, or dress in this case, and cut a piece off as wide as you want the cowl. That's it. Really.

Then put it on baby and loop it around twice and Ta Da!  No Sew Baby Cowl!
Don't you just want to eat her?!?


Here she is modeling a few of her favorite outfits and coordinating cowls:

Her ear warmer in the picture above was also made by Tara. She cut off the sleeve of an old sweater dress and sewed it together. Where she sewed it together she gathered it a bit and tied a bow around it for added cuteness.  I can't even describe how much I love this thing. Penelope HATES wearing hats, but she will wear her ear warmer. She never lets me put a bow in her hair anymore, but I can get away with one on her ear warmer!