Menokreatikul; Little Pink Hiding Hood

Latest creation. Basic triangular shawl idea, but I made up the stitching and decided a hood would be good.

There was a whole giant ball of the pink aran-weight yarn left from the blanket making (there is also of the grey, but that will find another purpose). I have also been wondering how to utilise some of Mum's heavier homespun. As I worked it from skein to ball, I was aware that it matched the aran weight, even a little chunkier. This yarn is about 25 years old. I was with Mum when she visited the farmer with the Merino flock near Perth, West Australia. We watched the shearing, and a fleece was selected, then it was taken all the way from that raw state through to this. It took her a while. In fact, she was back in Scotland before she actually got around to spinning it. All the plucking, brushing, washing and carding had been done, but it had to wait for the wheel. At the spinning stage, the original 'black' (which is really chocolate) was blended with a little white from another fleece, but still Merino. There is still a good feel of lanolin in the yarn and a degree of coarseness to the hand. Mum had definitely intended it as an outer garment, like a sweater jacket. There is not enough of it to make a complete garment for me, so I opted to use some as the contrast for this project.

Around the edging and at the front, I changed the stitching to standard 'net' crochet;

This, I thought, would create a slightly frilly effect... I could have done with exaggerating it a bit more, as I feel the effect just looks a little untidy. But this was just a one-off for sitting and working on other projects, or reading, or writing... to be thrown over as an extra layer. The main body of the wrap is created using a latched stitch method (some call it link or connect stitching)... (A mini video to show how)

In verbal terms, this can be done with any stitch starting from half treble (or US, half double) crochet up to double treble (treble) crochet. It creates a firmer, more structured material for garments. You place the hook first through the middle loop in front of the current stitch, then yarn over and pull through, then into the loop of the following and complete as per normal.

The Viking braid effect is created simply by making the centre stitches of each row a link of 5 to 7 chain stitches and, once the rows are complete, linking them around each other. The semi-corded effect on the fabric is created by working into the back loop only on the front row and into the front loop only of the back row. 

The hood was a challenge... I ended up just making a sort of headband from side to side over the crown, then working decreasing rows from that to the tip. I deliberately oversized it as this is intended to be worn over another jumper and beanie - and probably my earphone headset too!  Anyway, here's the completed item.