Autumn Cape 2016 A long Term Project Oakey Doh-key

Autumn Cape 2016 A long Term Project

Oakey Doh-key

No you haven’t missed a post. I am still plodding away on the Hood but since it is taking a while I thought I would blog about something a little different.

If you can remember way back towards the beginning of the project I mentioned that I only have a limited amount of yarn in certain colours. This is due to the fact that they are from discontinued stock. Now since I am getting very low I thought it was a good time to check the Cape.

Doh-key

Autumn Cape Orange Hole - Stretched 

I apologise for the quality of the photographs but unfortunately I can’t take close shots very well. Hopefully you can see a Stretched Hole in between the Orange and Yellow.

Autumn Cape Orange Hole Mended - Stretched

 

Using a short piece of Orange Yarn I sewed across the gap. I tried to do this using a crisscross method as sewing directly across would have been too noticeable.

Autumn Cape Orange Hole 2 – Dropped Stitch

Autumn Cape Orange Hole 2 Mended– Dropped Stitch

 

Using the same technique I mended the Dropped Stitch Hole. I continued to do this throughout the colours on the Back of the Cape and with luck I have managed to spot them all. I have to repeat this process on the Sides and Sleeves. The Hood isn’t as bad as obviously by now I know better what I am doing.

Oakey

So I have covered the ‘Doh-what have I done-Key’ what about the ‘Oakey’ bit? Ah well here I have to admit this is not my own design. Whilst thinking about embellishments I decided I wanted some Oak Leaves. Therefore I trawled the Internet searching for a pattern as I knew this was definitely out of my ability range.

Oak Leaf Pattern

The Pattern I found used 3 mm Double Ended Needles. So this is what I used for my initial attempt. Since I had more Orange Wool than anything else I selected this colour to knit with.

Orange Oak Leaf 

Although this is a beautiful leaf it turned out that following the pattern using 3 mm needles I ended up with a leaf 13 cm long. This was far in excess of what I required.

Yellow Oak Leaf

On my second attempt I used 2.75 mm needles. This again was far too big at 12 cm.

Red Oak Leaf

Third time lucky I found that using 2 mm needles (Thanks Cayt Hewitt for the loan) the Oak Leaf came out at 10 cm. This is really a bit on the large size for what I originally had in mind but I am not sure if they do needles any smaller and even if they did I struggled knitting the pattern with these so it will have to do.

Triple Oak Leaves

This is how the Oak Leaves compare in size.  I shan’t be doing anymore for a while yet as plodding away at the Hood. If you would like to try knitting them yourself see the pattern link below.

Oak Leaf Pattern

http://www.oddknit.com/patterns/treesandleaves/oakleaf.html