…she will want a cloak to go with it.
For Christmas, my boyfriend gave me the leaf-shaped brooch from the Lord of the Rings film. It had been years since I have daydreamed about running around Middle Earth, but the gift brought back memories of my early teenage obsession with Tolkien. (I was a little late joining: when my year 5 classmates were reading the books and the films started coming out, I thought The Hobbit was too scary and preferred reading Anne of Green Gables)
A decade later, though, during my undergrad I joined the Hiking Society because I wanted a Lord of the Rings adventure experience. We were told we have to buy certain rain gear – not much colour choice. My fellow first years went for the orange or red –practical because it meant you could be easily seen in the forest in case you got lost. I chose dark green, however, because it seemed most Lord of the Rings like. (After about 7 years of wearing it and the waterproofness started to wear off, one day I realised I look like wet seaweed more than anything else)
Anyway, I decided I would like to own an elven cloak. Sewing not being my thing, I looked for knitting or crochet patterns and found a free crochet pattern for a Hooded Cloak on Raverly by Dillan Ekle
As it says, the process of making it is simple. It just requires endurance because the project is quite long.
Although the pattern says that gauge doesn’t matter, I found that it does, if one is using Double Knit yarn rather than Chunky. I found that the opening for the neck too small, which made the hood look very weird.
So I’ve adjusted the pattern for Double Knit yarn. If my calculations are correct, I started on what would be equivalent to the 5th row in the original pattern.
Foundation : Ch 77
Row 1: dc in the 3rd ch from hook; dc in next 9 chs; [V-st in next ch; dc in the next 13 chs] 5 times
Row 2: ch2; dc in the first 10 sts; [V-st in chsp; dc in the next 15 sts] 4 times; V-st in chsp; dc in the next 10 sts
Row 3: ch2; dc in the first 11 sts; [V-st in chsp; dc in the next 17 sts] 4 times; V-st in chsp; dc in the next 11 sts
Continue to dc in each dc and V-st in each chsp…
For my full calculations, charts and other size options, see my google document and if you find any mistakes, please do let me know!
Lucanus Maculifemoratus 