cape crusade...

what I did...going back to issue 30 - the poncho issue, from 2004, I had made a little girl's circular poncho, sideways knit. - it was on the LK150 and was really cute. Jordan, the girl who modelled it, liked it so much I gave it to her.
So that was my basic idea, make a semi-circle in stockinette and leave it open in the front instead of joining to pull over the head. As I was knitting the wedges of shortrows to make that part of it, I was running through ways to finish the front edges, which could be a problem because of it being sideways. By the time I finished the 1200 rows of the circular part, it dawned on me - I had some killer stockinette bands on the 'Side Steps' jackets that should work well - they did! Then I wanted to finish the bottom of the shawl/cape with a nice lacy ruffle - I messed about for a couple of hours swatching and trying to get a shortrowed ruffle that I could knit and attach at the same time - way too much work and then there would be a major issue of steaming the ruffle. Yes! make a horizontal lace strip - like from that 'Tiers of Joy' skirt and reduce to every other needle after the lace part to create a natural gathering effect. By measuring the bottom edge of the cape, I figured it would take 5 strips to finish the bottom nicely.
Cast on waste yarn, used a 3 strand ewrap for the bottom, knit 4 rows plain, made 12 rows of fashion lace to create the scallop. transfer to every other needle and knit waste for 10 rows still on EON. Then bring all needles back to work, knit several rows - that way you can just keep knitting and not have to cast-on again and hang weights, etc over and over again. Also, it made it much quicker to steam all in one piece! That was worth all my years of experience to be able to pick pieces of this and that and put it all together.
I just needed a button at the top and all is good - Mom loves it almost as much as I do and I think Rhiana was reasonably happy - we'll have to wait for later in May to get actual photos!