Progress on Crochet Sweaters

Now that the frenzy of Christmas is over, I can go back to finishing my projects languishing in craft bags all over my house. My number one priority at home is to finish my two sweaters. I profess that I will not start anything new until I’m done with at least one. I proclaim that I will wear one of those sweaters before winter ends. (Don’t hold me to any of that!!!)

My granny square sweater will NOT be worn this winter. Those plugs are taking for ever!!! I get discouraged more quickly so it gets put down more often. Instead, I’m working on a new sweater that actually has a chance of seeing the light of a cold day.

I’m working this new sweater in a beautiful star stitch with alternating and complementary colors from my yarn stash (I didn’t want to buy anymore yarn). As usual, I jumped in head first, armed with an idea and a plan. I arranged my colors and got to work. I thought I knew what I was doing. I’ve done the star stitch a million times (it’s one of my favorite stitches). I went for it measuring along my body and deciding lengths and widths that way.

As I was crocheting along, after row upon row of star stitches, I noticed a slight lean to my garment. I was supposed to be getting rectangular panels that I would sew together later but I was getting a parallelogram instead! When I first noticed the lean, I didn’t believe it. I convinced myself it was my imagination so I kept working. By the time I noticed it again, it was too late!

Those are some shifty rows there.

 

I wasn’t about to undo all that work. How did this happen? I’ve done this stitch before. Ah, revelation. I usually do this stitch in the round. In the round, there is no slant, at least not one I notice.

I looked up videos on how to do it in rows versus in the round and made adjustments. I self corrected and the subsequent rows went straight up. I decided I would find a way to fix those shifty rows later. This was probably around the time I put the project down to go into my pre-Christmas frenzy. When I picked it up again to make a new panel, I made the same mistake again! I couldn’t remember how I fixed it before (but I thought I had) and when I started the new panel, I did what I thought I did before to correct the problem but I made a brand new mistake! It was more subtle of a lean but it was still a lean.

I self corrected again and it went straight up again. I needed two panels of that one so I had to copy it with mistakes and all.

I did not make the same mistake on the back panel. I made it right. It’s looking like a nice rectangle and not another parallelogram. Now I need to figure out how to make the pieces work so I can sew them into a sweater. The ends of three panels need to be worked somehow into becoming rectangles. I have to find a way to make triangles that fit perfectly on the ends so that a parallelogram becomes a rectangle. Then I have to make sure all my pieces still fit. I’m also starting to wonder if I even made my panels the right size!

Never fear, I have a new plan! I see it all in my head. It will work out in the end. I will find a way to make it all work! A sweater will be born if it kills me. Most of my favorite projects were created in just this way. It wouldn’t be any fun if it was easy. 🙂

 

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