I am a cowl convert. It seems if your neck is warm, so goes the rest of you. There was a time when I couldn't stand the extra heat, but now am finding I need it.
I was inspired by this cowl from Berroco's free patterns.
If you'd like to see the original pattern, you can find it here:http://www.berroco.com/exclusives/winterfloral/winterfloral_1.html
I liked the concept but not the design. I found a William Morris wall paper I liked, converted it to knit stitches in DesignaKnit and knit the cowl on my Brother 970.
It's a rectangle 28" wide by 18" tall. I doubled it over so that the height is 9", and I positioned the seam at the bottom. Some of the images you convert to knit patterns have long floats between motifs and, although they might be lovely, are not very practical. The nice thing about this method of making the cowl is that all the long floats are enclosed when you seam it. Steaming takes care of smoothing it out. Just for added interest, I put a small red stripe on each end. Both ends have 2 x 2 ribbing; one side has 3 button holes. Found some vintage-looking buttons for it. The yarn is Forsell's Pure New Wool, T 7, 7 st x 9 rows=1". Very soft and warm. You could easily make it with your own design or one that is built into your machine subbing your own gauge. Really simple and fast.
Closeup of the back side:
Nice, eh?