Back in the fall/early winter, I started watching some new (to me) crochet and knitting YouTube channels. One was TL Yarn Crafts. One of her videos was an attempt to crochet a sweater in 24 hours. Really? Of course it was chunkier yarn. I'm not fond of crochet in chunky yarns. Crochet stitches are thicker than knit stitches. I liked patterns from I Love Tinderbox but frankly, I didn't want to pay for a pattern. After all, it's just math, right? I also looked at a lot from MJ's Off The Hook. The interesting thing is she lives about an hour from me, and we were both small creators at the same time, in same FB groups. She really ran with it and is now a huge crochet designer! Most of her patterns were yarns that were thicker. As well, although most patterns are free on her blog, they are incredibly annoying to read there. You can, of course, pay for a proper pattern. I also wanted to do top down, raglan style, but how to account for larger bust?
I searched and searched. Finally, I settled on Silver Moon, by Drops. It's made top down, in pieces, and not a raglan. Exactly what I was looking for LOL. I had swatched a couple other patterns in a couple different yarns, but nothing was working. This one looked pretty easy and straight forward.
I decided I was going to re-use yarn from an old favourite sweater. I posted in 2012 that I was going to re-work it then. I seemed to have actually started that re-knit. I don't know what happened. It was in my stash, complete with the needles. I really did like that sweater, but it was pretty shapeless.
I had a lot of smaller balls due to the adjustments I had previously made with the sweater. I didn't pay attention at first to the colour sequencing when starting a new ball, but then I did part way through.
I was crocheting so much, I actually decided to get a new crochet hook (after watching a bunch of videos). Not much available at Wal-Mart, but this one felt good. You can't try them out so you never know. I also watched a video on gadgets for crochet, and one tested a tension ring. She didn't like it, but but I had noticed the yarn was leaving essentially, a burn mark, across my finger. The ring really helped.
I knit the back in the size Medium. I started with a larger size, but I'm glad I downsized. The nice thing about this pattern is that you can switch between UK and US terminology and have it circle all the instructions for your size choice.
I pretty much followed the back exactly. For the front, I started with the same size Medium, but then increased in the front on either side of centre (by a bit, not exactly at the centre, but about halfway between centre and edge). I really wanted short rows, but had no idea how to do that in double crochet.
I noticed that the right side (as worn) was smoother along the bottom than the left side.
When I got closer to the front bottom, I looked up how to do short rows, and I added some to round out the front piece's bottom, to allow for the extra length I need on my front.
The sleeves were to be picked up and crocheted down. I could not make sense of the instructions. Upon looking really close at the picture, there seemed to be a decorative join. I ditched that and just attached like usual.
Then I sewed it up. Then I went to weave in ends.
What is this?! I found out I had done something with weaving in the end...I did it over a seam, and it was so tight it was puckering the right side. I tried really hard to unweave that end, but I could NOT find the end!! Eventually I cut it, and tied in another strand to loosen it off. That's the True Tracy Way, LOL.
I really like the sweater. However, I think the yarn has been overworked. It feels a bit crispy. And it pills very easily. And the lower front edge is actually a bit too wide. The yarn has a decent drape, but it is tenting out over my front hips.
When I tried it on, I decided the V neck was a bit low for work. I decided to crochet a mesh insert. It was hard to wrap my head around how to do this. I felt like I was crocheting backwards on every other row. This picture doesn't show it well. I put a light colour napkin behind the insert, but you can see the back of the sweater too.
Some of the seaming went well. However, the sleeves gave me some issues. I finally marked every 5 rows on each edge to match them up. And the seam shows more on this one sleeve than the other seams.
I ended up with two different weights. First was just the sweater on the scale, and the second was with it in a bowl (tared out). So, I'm using a mid-way weight. Mexican Wave DK, 5mm hook. I'm going to round it up a smidge to 400gr even.
Just before I finished, I found a bag with about 4-5 unused balls of this yarn!!! What?! I'll have to see if that's enough for another sweater--maybe knit, since it uses less yarn (smaller, because I'm shrinking a bit).
Yarn In: 500gr
Yarn Out: 400gr + 2143gr = 2543gr
Balance: 2043gr more OUT than in
Costs: $15.81
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