•Dragon Watcher’s Hood ~ Finished Object ~

So there I sat.

Sipping my Kivu coffee… laptop propped on my knees…Scouring through patterns on Ravelry.

“Something epic,” I thought.

“I need something epic…”

“Epic, but wearable…”

“Perhaps something red…”

“Ahhhh…. I LOVE IT!” I squealed in my mind. I happened across this Dragon Watcher’s Hood by tiny owl knits who designs the coolest stuff! I may have spent the next few weeks stalking her patterns like a starving hyena, deciding which patterns of hers I wanted to make next. Maybe. I admit NOTHING! 😉

So I decided to amp up the crazy and hold together 8 (repeat EIGHT) strands of my superwash merino wool in lace weight, in colorway OXBLOOD. Yep. That is the actual name of a color. I’m not referring to the blood of an ox. Although, I bet it is similar to this color.

It’s a rich, deep, sophisticated red that just makes you wanna drool all over it. With glee.

Pretty yarn + a Pretty pattern = Drool.

The only real reason I can remember for deciding to hold 8 strands together is because I wanted to. Yep. Pretty much sums it up.

Do I recommend it?

Nope.

I used 2 skeins and wound each into 2 balls, for a total of 4 balls.

I then pulled from the center and from the outside of each, for the aforementioned 8 strands. Voila. Disaster waiting to happen.

If you DO decide to go this route, here is what I recommend:

• Don’t move your balls/WIP (work in progress). Leave it all sitting right beside your chair and move your BODY if you need to reposition anything… Or move one ball at a time. We picked everything up to vaccuum one day and plopped it in my papasan chair… Well. I spent a whole heckava long time detangling (untangling?) the mess.
• Don’t move your balls
• Don’t move your balls

Okay.

Let’s break down the info into tidy little packets:

PATTERN: DRAGON WATCHER’S HOOD by tiny owl knits

YARN: The pattern called for super bulky weight. I used: my superwash merino wool lace weight, 2 skeins, 8 strands held together at once. Yikes. Colorway OXBLOOD. Colors come and go so you have to nab the colors you want when you can get them. (I’m currently away in Maui, but when I get back, I’ll dye up a bunch of this colorway for you!)

Side note. My lace weight wool is half the thickness of my superwash sock weight. So you could hold 4 strands of the sock weight together instead. Easier.

We are currently almost out, but if you have my superwash worsted wt (or aran) weight yarn (4 ply), it’s double the thickness of my sock weight. So you could hold 2 strands together of that. Easier!

Why don’t I just carry bulky weight yarns and use that instead? Well, I might! Someday.

But I didn’t have any at the time, so made do. And it was fun.

NEEDLES: US size 17’s. The pattern calls for 15’s. Rather than do a gauge swatch to make sure my stitches per inch was the same as the designers, I decided to “wing it” and hope for the best. So I used 17’s as in my mind, it seemed the “right” thing to do.

MODIFICATIONS: Welllll…. As I do a lot, I altered the pattern a bit. I basically just quit knitting sooner than you are supposed to. So it ended up shorter; more like a slouchy elf hat than a hood. I used the leftover yarn to make a pompom for the end. And then just did a quick crochet chain for the ties and ran it through the hood edging. No bells like the pattern called for. I liked the idea of bells, but didn’t have any.

I gave this to my niece, Diana, for Christmas. I admit, I wanted to keep it.

I’m smitten like a kitten.

Holding 8 strands together made the color (even though hand-dyed) very solid and even. And it pops like crazy against the snow!

We had a warm day (about 0 degrees) so we ran out into the cold and did this photo shoot.

This pattern makes me happy. The color makes me happy. And isn’t that the purpose of why we do all this crafting?

I think so.

I’ve now begun another of her patterns, called Orchids and Fairy Lights hat… I’ll keep you posted.

In the meantime, let me know what you think of this hood by commenting below! 

Over and out…

XOXOXO

~Chandi