The Purple Haze Capalette
This is just a show-off-something-I-made post, more pictures than text (and cell phone pics, at that!).
This little capalette started off from a pattern in Crochet! magazine, the Autumn 2012 issue that just came out. They called it “Purple Haze Shoulder Scarf” and made it out of a lightweight yarn. I didn’t have that weight of yarn on hand, and because I do have a lot of crochet thread I decided to alter the pattern a tiny bit so I could just use what I had.
See, when you choose a lighter weight yarn (and a different hook) your end piece will be narrower and shorter than if you used a heavier yarn, smaller all over. Because fatter yarn takes up more room, thus 12 rows of a thick yarn will hang longer than 12 rows of a skinny yarn. With me so far? Good. So to use the crochet thread I had on hand, which is skinnier than the yarn the pattern was written for, I needed to work the pattern larger around than what it called for at my measurements, plus make it longer than what the original pattern said to do. And it’s not like I’m an expert at this yet so I pretty much just guessed.
Mostly I just worked the pattern as they wrote it for the XL size, then added 2 extra rows in length to account for the finer thread I was using. I tried it on only twice: once to make sure the part that was supposed to go around my neck would do so, and again after adding the 2 rows but before doing any of the edging to make sure I liked how long it was hanging down. Both times – success!
So here ‘tis.
I renamed it Purple Haze Capalette, as I just like that word “capalette” – and that’s really what it is anyway, a small cape. It’s worked in Aunt Lydia’s Crochet Thread #3 in a color they call Plum, but I call it Dusty Lavender. The buttons came from a small grab-bag from a fantastic shop in San Francisco I went to twice the last time I was there, Britex Fabrics.
Remember those weirdly spotted hard plastic bowls your Mom had when you were a kid? These buttons reminded me of that material.
The pictures here are from my phone’s camera, so the color is a bit off. I may repost decent pictures when I take them, and try to jump in frame for one so you can see how it hangs on a real, live human being. Or not.
This is an accomplishment for me: it’s the largest piece I’ve made, it took a long time, and I’m keeping it! Likely I couldn’t sell one because it took too many hours to make; to sell it at a decent price I’d end up paying myself like $2 an hour. But if I were to sell one like it, what would you be willing to pay?
Don’tcha love that edging along the bottom? It’s called a Double Bullion Stitch.
madwhimsy 