Lakota Hood

Another online pattern I bought earlier this year, also by Heidi Tompkins, who designed the Failynn Fox Cowl, was the Lakota Hood. I really liked the style and chunky look of this and thought it might be just the thing for my daughter who lives in Canberra, where the winters are, by Australian standards, cold.

Like the fox cowl, the Lakota Hood is knitted in super-chunky wool, not something I have on hand, so when Morris and Sons had their  sale recently, I ordered 4 balls of their 20 ply Fuel - the thickest wool I could find. I went for Nightfall - although I was tempted by Cargo, because it was closer to the illustration in the pattern (easier to imagine).

I worried a bit as I knitted it, that it knitted loosely - I could see between the stitches it if I held it to the light, although the tension was OK. I thought I could go down a couple of needle sizes to get a more dense coverage - but would then need to add stitches and may not have enough wool.

The design is very simple - two scarf-like pieces that join together, knitted in seed stitch. The wool was easy to handle and knitted into interesting patterns. Although the pattern is simple enough for a beginner, it assumes some knowledge of things like joining pieces and creating buttonholes.

The  hood piece is slightly wider and longer than the neck piece and is folded and attached to it. After all my concern, I had wool left over - so could probably have gone down a needle size.







My daughter had given me some fabulous buttons for my birthday - handmade in Tasmania (will blog about those soon) - and I thought that a couple of them would work really well on this hood. I selected a gum-nut conversion.

The placement of the buttons suddenly transformed the hood into something warm and elegant. My fears about the texture disappeared. The hood pulls in firmly around the neck and drapes over the shoulders and feels really warm.

Relief - it looks good. I sent it off as soon as it was finished and it has been worn already in Canberra.