Sometimes it is just a little thing that can send my mind off wandering. The initial inspiration for this piece came to me when I was looking into fairy tales and translating them into English for a friend to read. One of my favorite tales is Sleeping Beauty. At the time, I was very fascinated with the origin of the tale, it’s different versions and retellings of it. The fact, that I was also listening to Seanan McGuire’s Indexing Series just made me dive into it even deeper. Somewhere during that phase, the idea for this cape came up. I am not sure what you would call it exactly. A capelet, a cowl, a shoulder-warmer, something to keep you warm. I call it “Secrets in the Briars”.

Here is a link to the pattern’s Ravely-Page. I would love to see your projects there <3

Secrets in the Briars – Ravelry

The Idea and Layout

When I started making this, I planned for it to be a simple off white cape in a nice pattern stitch with a garland of roses wrapped around it and maybe a blood-red rose center piece. When I looked at the yarn I had, the red was very nice, the off-white was very nice, but the contrast seemed too much. Nonetheless, I set out to make the lower part of it. I got the pattern stitch form this book. I worked the top and bottom part in the stitch going in rounds. For the middle, I made some lacy squares and a rose granny square as a center piece. Then I just put the pieces together as I went. Somewhere between making the base part and the squares, I also let go of the idea of the wrap around garland and settled for the final design without any other color embellishments.

I used about 5 balls of DROPS Baby Merino and a 3mm hook.

Starting the Pattern

The pattern repeat is 6 stitches long and 4 repeats fit one of the square, so the total of starting stitches should be a multiple of 24 (24 = 4 repeats x 6 stitches). I had 12 squares in the middle, so the total number of stitches I started with was 12 x 24 = 288 stitches. I started with a Single Crochet Foundation Chain and then worked the pattern stitch in rounds:

1. Make a single Crochet Foundation Chain with a number of stitches that is divisible by 24 and is long enough to fit comfortably around your arms where the lower edge of the cape will be. (288 in my case)
   1. Join the ends of the foundation chain with a slip stitch making sure not to turn it or tangle it.

Now the first row of the pattern:

1. Chain 6.
   1. Yarn over and insert hook into the first stitch of the foundation
   2. Draw up two double crochets without finishing them
2. Yarn over
   1. Draw up a loop
   2. Yarn over and draw through the first 2 loops on the hook
   3. Yarn over
   4. Insert hook into the foundation
   5. Draw up a loop
   6. Yarn over
   7. Draw the loop through the first two loops again
   8. You should now have two half-finished double crochets on your hook.
   9. Skip 5 stitches and make two more half-finished DCs into the 6th foundation stitch
   10. Yarn over and pull through all loops on the hook
   11. Chain 3
   12. Double crochet into the same foundation chain stitch
   13. Chain 3
   14. Repeat 2-9 all the way around.
   15. Close the last chain 3 into the first chain 6 with a slip stitch
   16. For the next row, start over, clustering the stitches into the double crochets of the previous row.

Repeat these rows until the piece is about 10 centimeters wide. In my case, I needed 7 rows.

As a graph, the pattern looks something like this:

Repeat these rows until the piece is about 10 centimeters wide. In my case, I needed 7 rows.

The Squares

I used two different square patterns. For the centerpiece, I used a granny square with a rose:

Rose Granny Square

The other square was made using the chart no. 4 from this book:

Ondori Motif and Edging Designs

I made one of the rose squares and 9 of the lace squares and fitted them around the base:

Making Squares

When I finished them all, I sewed them together at the sides and then sewed them to the base part. It is important to make sure they are all facing the right way and look even.

The Top

After joining the squares to the base part, I made a round of (single crochet – chain 2 – single crochet) around the upper edge of the squares. I just made sure to have the same number of stitches that I used for the base foundation chain distributed evenly.

I then continued in the pattern stitch for 4 more rows as in the chart above.

After that, I started to decrease. It took me a while to work out decreases that looked half decent. Sometimes, when you use a particular pattern stitch, having even decreases without holes can be tricky. For this pattern, I just skipped making the full “shell” of stitches in every 8th shell. Instead, I went “make 2 half-finished double crochets – double crochet in the next pattern shell – move on to the next shell – 2 half-finished double crochets – yarn over – pull through all the stitches”.

It is a little fiddly, but what you are doing is essentially skipping a pattern repeat while filling it in with one double crochet so you don’t have an ugly hole.

In the next row I decreased every 7th pattern repeat, after that every 6th and so on until the cape fit nicely over my shoulders.

And it does: