Improvising the cowl Katniss wore in the opening scene of the Catching Fire movie. Through internet research found out the original piece by designer Maria Dora was woven. Have seen some knitted and crocheted ones inspired by the same, on Ravelry and some blogs but by then I had been working on my own on and off for about a month so decided to just go ahead with this.

Using chinese wool yarn. Don’t know the brand as the label is in Chinese, but I got it from Dreams.

Using two strands of dark and light gray. Crocheted one long strip of dc, hdc on back loop / front loop (alternating), which was wrapped around shoulders and back following structure as best as I could understand it from screen caps and stills from the trailer and magazine scans found on tumblr. Joined diagonally at the back, making space for armhole. Long rectangular strip ends in a diagonal edge by decreasing 1 stitch each row on only one side.

Not too happy with the shoulder parts after seeing the movie several times and getting a better look at the original cowl, maybe I’ll fold over the shoulder parts when wearing it.

Collar was made by crocheting over a cord made of red heart super saver I had in my stash. I tried to find thick cotton cord to use instead but there was none thick enough in local hardware stores so I just used yarn. To make the cord, I used fsc with two strands held together to make a long fsc chain. That chain was itself crocheted using fsc to make a thick cord like chain to crochet over as seen in the photo.

Before crocheting the collar, I slip stitched evenly (2 sl st each rpw) around the collar edge of the cowl body. Starting at the back, I crocheted over the improvised cord in each slip stitch. Once over first slip stitch, then twice over second, then once over the third, then twice over the next, until collar edge is filled. I tried crocheting over twice for every sl st, but that made the collar way too wide, so frogged that. Then tried crocheting over once in each sl st but that made the collar way too narrow. The once, twice pattern was the goldilocks solution. To end the row, I put sl st and sc on the tip of the cord, completely covering the darkwr red heart super saver yarb the cord was made of and weaved in the ends.

To make the second row of the collar, I slip stitched around the collar edge of the cowl body to skip a few inches of row 1 of the cord collar (skipping a few inches results in the triangular hole at the back), then slip stitched on top of the first row of the cord collar-- one slip stitch for every four strands of yarn (remember two strands are held together while crocheting). These slip stitches will be where the second row of the cord collar will attach. To complete the row, the triangular hole is closed by making a fsc chain. I eyeballed how long that chain would be. For the second row of cord collar, crochet over once in each slip stitch around (instead of once, twice pattern) and into the fsc chain. Attached the end the yarn cord to the start, hiding the end into the crocheted over cord at the beginning of tje second row. Filled the tip of the cord with sl st and sc as with first row, to hide the darker yarn, before using sl st to close the row. Weaved in ends.

If I make another one of this, the long strip should be of varying widths depending on whether that part of the strip would cover the waist or the shoulders-- less width on the shoulders (the side of which will be the collar base) and more width for the waist (which would add length to the bottom part.
Or maybe start with the cord collar and crochet in the round around the shoulders and back, then crochet a long strip vertically (instead of horizontally as I did here) to wrap around the waist and front? I want to try out different ways if only yarn weren’t expensive and I had the time to do so!

Very excited to wear it and take pictures, especially as a friend gave me a mockingjay pin as a Christmas gift. :)

If anyone is reading this, sorry if I don’t explain things well enough…

Photos from the movie were pilfered off the internet, mostly from the Capitol Couture tumblr, and tumblr tag searches. No copyright infringement intended… just using the pictures for reference as a fan. :)