I just finished my second "Cold Shoulder Capelet" from Debbie Stoller's "Happy Hooker" crochet book for a friend's mom. This is a quick crochet--both capelets took me two days each. It's a nice quick gift idea. It came out really nice--nicer than the one I made for myself! I did something somehow accidentally which made the bottom larger than the pattern specs which turned out nicely...this one fit me better and flared out pretty. My gauge on this one was also more on target than the first one I made--for that one, I had to crochet two rows to equal one row in the pattern in order to get the row gauge in the pattern. This time, I used a larger hook and was able to follow the pattern precisely, but since it was wider, I used more yarn. By the time I finished, I think I had only like 36" left of yarn--cutting it really close!I opted for a decorative clasp rather than the ties and pom poms as indicated in the pattern
because I thought they might be a bit fussy for her. The clasp adds a bit of quiet charm to the capelet, and with the capelet being a vintage-inspired pattern, I bought a vintage-style clasp. I hope she likes it! The pattern calls for a mohair (fuzzy) yarn, but honestly, I like it also in the Patons Classic Merino wool worsted weight yarn (it takes two skeins [2 x 223 yards = 446 yards] of this yarn to make the capelet according to gauge in the book). I was disappointed at first that I couldn't use some alpaca yarn I had in my stash for my capelet because I wasn't able to maneuver the fuzziness of the yarn around that hook and I wasn't able to see where my stitches were (maybe when I get some more crocheting experience?), but when it was finished with the "smooth" merino yarn, I really liked it, and I was glad to be able to see the detail of those shells clearly, too. A fuzzy yarn might have obscured that detail more than I would have liked. Everything works out for a reason!
