The Crochet Coats – Sweaters So Far

My three sweater coats

This was the first and is my favorite in the ‘looks’ category. I’m still working on this one.

This is the second one and I love the star stitch but I had a few mistakes that were bothering me. This one went to my sister.

Here’s the current one. This one is my favorite in the ‘how it feels’ category but it’s not my favorite to look at. But I do like it a lot overall. I might add pockets and I might, might I say, give this a friend who likes it.

So now I’ve finished three coats but the first of the three is still waiting to be plugged up. As a reminder, I finished that first one ages ago.

It’s the only one that had a hood. It’s the only one I bought special yarn for (and by

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Bavarian Crochet Sweater/Coat/Cardigan

It’s done! I can finally wear it when it’s cold again. I really like this one. It feels great and I’m happy with it’s length. My friend saw it and says she wants one. She’s been telling me she wants one since I made the first one (which I’m still plugging away at, literally, plugging up the holes), the second one, which I gave to my sister, and now this third one. Maybe I’ll give it to her and start a fourth one. Or maybe I’ll start a fourth one and pick my favorite and give her the other one. We’ll see. 🙂 Oh, and another one I promised my other sister! I better get busy!

I’ll be warn come winter although I was roasting in it for the picture. It was 90º!

 

There’s the back.

You can see the shell edging I did at the end of the sleeves and around the the bottom and up the front of the coat.

I’m still thinking of adding a pocket. It was a mistake on my part not to have built the pocket in when I was sewing it up. It would have been so easy. Now I have to cover up one of the squares in order to add it on top. That’s the only thing stopping me from doing it but my hands instinctively want to go in a pocket so I just might have to do it.

New Sleeves for Crochet Bavarian Coat

I know I was supposed to set the unfinished coat aside and contemplate its sleeves at a later time with a clearer head. I was to use that time on other things and come back to it with all kinds of ideas and possibilities. That lasted 24 hours.

I’m trying out star stitches and I’m working both sides simultaneously so I can see the progress and so that I don’t forget what I did from one sleeve to the next. I know, I know, I should be writing it down and I tried. But I’ve written things down before, only to go do the second of whatever I was making and it didn’t turn out the same. I know I wrote it down right! Sooo, I reasoned that if I do them at the same time, there’s more chance of success. I can try on as I go and if it’s not working, I can rip it back before I get too far.

I think I finally found the solution I like. They look good to me so far. Hopefully they will look good all the way to the end.

 

 

Crochet Fail – Bavarian Sweater/Coat

I normally have no qualms about ripping back work when it isn’t right, but this time, this time, I have a lot of qualms about it. I had set aside my Bavarian square sweater in lieu of other projects. Why? Because it got hot! Who needs a thick and cozy sweater when it’s bloody hot outside! Plus, I couldn’t figure out what to do with the sleeves, so it was easily abandoned.

All my other projects are complete and there aren’t any crochet fires I need to put out, sooo… I picked up the sweater and continued work on the sleeves. One of the problems of working off-the-seat-of-your-pants, on-the-fly, make-up-as-you-go type of creation, is that you don’t always get what you envision in your mind (or is it only me?). I’ve been working the sleeves separately from the main coat in Tunisian Crochet. I ran out of black awhile back and was too busy (lazy) to go buy more. PLUS, I had so much of the grey yarn I’d already used on the sweater (and spent good money on already), I thought it would be good enough. The panels themselves I like. Once I finished them (after trying out different solutions), I sewed one of the sleeves onto the sweater last night and tried it on to see my handy work. Yuck! I didn’t like it.

Doesn’t look so bad here, but trust me, it’s no good! 

First of all, the sleeve didn’t drape right. I  was still going to make a few rounds of half double crochet with deeper decreases for the cuffs, but after trying it on and not liking the drape, I didn’t proceed with that. No matter how much I tugged and pulled on it, it still looked bad. The problem was that I needed more decreases further up on the sleeves. The sleeves were too big. Second of all, the color just didn’t work. I kept squinting and looking at it from different angles, but I couldn’t make myself like it. Fail!

The only good thing was that I only attached one sleeve. Now I needed to take the sleeve off and rip back both sleeves. That’s when the qualms hit me. I didn’t want to rip back all that work! I don’t usually struggle so much with frogging my work. I’ve ripped back entire queen-size blankets. But I just couldn’t do it. In the grand scheme of things, they are tiny panels that no one would miss (except me apparently).

I suppose it could be a skirt or top instead.

And yet…

Instead, I played with the unattached sleeve (I hadn’t removed the other one yet). I held it up to my chest to see if I could turn it into a top of some sort. I held it like a skirt. Hmmm… nope. Maybe.

I’m trying real hard to turn those panels into something else so I don’t feel like I wasted my time. I’ll probably just set the panels aside and think about them later. That way I’ll have some distance from all the work and I won’t be so torn about undoing them. In the meantime, I’ll start some new sleeves. This time, I’ll might start them straight on the arm holes, in black. I have black now. I probably should just make more granny squares for the sleeves. I was resistant to do that because the coat is already so dense. I thought it would be granny square overload. Maybe I’m over-thinking this. I’m most definitely over-thinking this.

I have until next winter to decide…😀

 

Bavarian Crochet Coat

Dense Bavarian Crochet Coat

I went off and started another crochet coat (sweater, cardigan, I never know how to label it). I’m almost done with it and realized I hadn’t done a single post about it. Well, if you count the post I made about the Bavarian square, then I guess I did post about it (at least the idea of making a sweater from it). And here I am , almost done with it.

The process for this one has been interesting. Here’s what I knew I wanted in a new sweater (coat, cardigan): It needed to be long. It needed to be dense (i.e. no holes to plug up). It needed to be easy. Lastly, it needed to fit! Oh, and feel good too, let’s not forget that.