A hood obsession

I have developed a slight hood obsession, quite possibly because we had quite the rainy winter here in the UK. Not only rain, but wind too, which usually means that there is no way you can hold an umbrella up.

Yes, hoods are clearly the answer, but not all my coats have hoods, so what is a girl to do? Well, knit one (or two) of course!

The first one is the Under the cover of midnight cowl from the vampire knits book - not really a hood per se, more like a giant cowl that you can pull over a head to cover your hair. I made this over Christmas but have just been too lazy to write about it for some reason.

The yarn is Colinette One Zero, a bulky loveliness that I picked up at the Alexandra Palace knitting show in October. At the time I was torn between this cowl and the Woodland hoodie from the Woodland Knits book (also picked at the Alexandra Palace knitting show), and so I bought 5 skeins, a compromise between the 4 skeins of the midnight cowl and the 6 skeins of the woodland hoodie.

As it turns out, only 3 were necessary, although I have a vague memory that I may have stopped a little short than what the pattern actually called for because I was on holiday away from home with 3 skeins and wanted to finish it before I got back.

Warding off vampires by covering the neck

As a hood

As a capelet

close-up of the cable

The second hood is actually a crochet hood plus scarf combo - is that called a scood? or a harf? No idea. Anyway, I saw this in Mollie Makes issue issue 37, and it is originally from Aran Nordic Fair Isle translated into English from the original Japanese.

For a change I actually bought the recommended yarn, Drops Karisma, which is insanely cheap for 100% wool and fairly decent, although not as soft as what I would normally go for (I bought it online so lacked the tactile element of the buying process, which normally involves me gently rubbing the skein against my face, weird!).

I thought I had checked my gauged properly, but as I was making it I realised that it was much bigger than what the pattern said,  thankfully early enough to not do two pattern repeats at the top/middle bit of the hood. Similarly, I made the scarf ends shorter (instead following the length directions, although one side is shorter because I ran out of yarn). I also added a slit at the start left scarf to pass the other end through, but it's not been incredibly helpful.

close-up

I can't decide if I like it or not, it doesn't quite look like a scarf when worn (I was jokingly called babushka because it looks more like a headscarf), and the scarf bit of it is not especially warm, so a little pointless.