Hey guys!! I made a sweater!!

Since it's no longer hat season, I spent some time trying to look up other crochet items that you can wear. 

Old man sweater? 

Nope. 

Skirt? 

MMmmm, might be cool, but kind of saggy I would think. 

How about a cardigan?

That could work!!

So I scoured Ravelry and found a few open type sweaters (didn't want to create a shapeless sack, and I don't really like sweaters to begin with). My husband laughed when I told him what I was going to make, he didn't think it would turn out, but I proved him wrong!!

I finally decided on this pattern after reading and looking at the 1,924 project posts that different people had created. I figured if that many people made and liked the pattern, it should probably be a good one :)

I made my sister one first, in white, to give to her for her birthday.

It turned out so good!! Even my husband was impressed. It's made as one piece, instead of making panels and sewing them together like some clothing articles are made. You crochet the yoke/collar, then split it when it gets to the length you want your arm holes to start. Then you skip some stitches, and go back and forth for the body. 

The pattern has a bunch of different size option, varying the amount of stitches to start out, or the hook and yarn size. I had some trouble on the front edge trim, ended up crocheting one double crochet per stitch instead of two, which worked out better for my tight stitches. 

Once I finished it, I blocked it by getting it wet and then laying it flat to dry. I haven't blocked anything before, but it made a huge difference in this pattern. Blocking helped all the stitches to lie flat and make the edges not curl up. 

After making my sister one, I of course wanted to make one for me :) One of the downsides of this pattern is that it calls for DK weight yarn, which is really hard to find at craft stores these days. All the cool colors are in worsted weight. The lighter weight is usually only baby colored yarns, and I'm not really a pastel colors person, so it's somewhat limiting finding different colors. The white was easy to find, but I wanted a colored one for me. After checking out Joann's selection, I went to Michael's to see what they had. I found this bright pink color that I really liked, so I made myself one in pink.

I actually didn't get a chance to block this one, you can see how the front edges are curled up a little bit. I wanted to wear it to church and didn't have time to block it. It should look a little better after blocking.