I’ve always liked the idea of a cloud sweater for some reason. I’ve seen them around and always thought it’s a really cool design, so now with my crochet capabilities, I was able to make one.
I had *some* blue and white yarn (unassigned to a specific project), but only 100g of blue, rather than the 200g or so I really needed. But I did have some turquoise, which I thought could be a good mix, providing I did a sort of ombre design. I did want to test this first, because I had no idea if it would look any good. Here’s the design on paper:
But first I needed to design a ‘test cloud’:
…as I didn’t know how it would translate into crochet from the paper, especially with the fact that I was going for a ribbed look. This grid paper was pretty accurate in representing each stitch, so I sketched out a rough cloud shape and created the above test. And it actually looked pretty cloud like, or at least in my opinion. So with that, I was able to carry out the aforementioned ombre test:
I wonder if anyone else’s crochet designs go through such a scientific process or if it’s just me- fellow crochet designers please let me know!!
Side note: I learned that the odd row numbers needed to be the front of the design, while equal were the back, so all the cut yarn strands etc need to be on the even number rows. You can see the ombre one is the opposite way round to the pink/ blue one, as I didn’t realise this at first.
As I sort of predicted, the ombre unfortunately wasn’t the look I wanted. It lacked contrast and didn’t match the bold image I had in my head for this design. Which meant I had to purchase another 100g ball, which was a problem in itself, because I bought the original ball a year ago and yeah finding the same dye lot one year on wouldn’t be easy! So I was stood in Hobbycraft trying to find the closest match for about half an hour. Bet I looked really normal and not weird at all. To be honest, I can’t really tell on the finished garment that it was two different dye lots and I should be the one to notice it, so I guess I picked right! I also had to buy yet another ball, because I didn’t have quite enough yarn to do the ribbing, so I now have almost a full ball of blue to use up in another project. Great! Maybe I could do an inverted version, so it could be a white backing, with blue clouds. Might be an idea…
Anyway, knowing the scale using the grid paper, I was then able to draw out a further four clouds (five was the right amount for this). I went with a variety of shapes and sizes, as I didn’t want them too uniform or anything:
I then created a grid in Excel- the same size of the grid paper I was using, which I printed out with enough rows/ columns as I needed for the vest- I was using the same row/ stitch count as one of the previous vests I made. I then marked out the front and back in different colour felts on the grid and transferred the clouds onto tracing paper. I cut those out, so I was able to move around and position them how I wanted and then taped them down once I was happy with the layout. When it came to doing the back, I would peel off the tape and reposition the clouds, so the back would be different than the front- I didn’t want them identical.
Once the rigorous design process was over, all I had to do was crochet! I used a 4mm hook (which seems to be my standard these days), using Wendy Supreme DK acrylic yarn for the blue and Women’s Institute DK acrylic for the white. The yarns are slightly different weights/ thicknesses, but I actually didn’t mind in this context, because the thicker white yarn makes the clouds look slightly fluffier and I was fine with that. I did actually have to re-do the back panel almost in full, as well as the sleeve ribbing, but can’t be bothered to go into the whole story as it’ll not be a riveting read!
The total weight after adding the ribbing is 230g (26g was the ribbing). I used approximately 20g of the white yarn, therefore 210g of the blue. And I absolutely love the outcome! It looks exactly how I envisaged it and I’m so proud of what I achieved with this one. It might be my favourite thing I’ve made to date…
Also, just want to say that September marked 1 year of crochet. I’m not sure if ‘life changing’ might be a little extreme here, but learning crochet has had a serious impact in my life in the best possible way. Once I got over the initial hurdle/ struggle of learning it, I felt like I found my ‘thing’. It’s so versatile in terms of what you can create and there’s so many different styles and directions you can take it in. It’s a great mix of creativity and practicality and it’s got such a calming feeling when you’re creating something. I also love just coming up with a design or idea for something and then seeing it being brought to life in my hands <3
I finally made my crochet cricket vest! This is something I’ve been wanting to make since I began crochet last September and I finally got round to starting it last month. It was something I’ve been putting off and putting off, because I wanted to get it exactly ‘right’ (I know, I know) and I didn’t think my skill level would have been able to provide should I have started it earlier. I definitely wasn’t ready the first few months, but I was probably more ready than I think I was and likely could have made it earlier. I was scared to start it because I didn’t want to mess it up and if you know me well then you know how much I love cricket and I really just wanted to do this piece justice!
It was also the fact of how complex I knew it would be to make which was why I was delaying it. I knew I wanted to use a combination of Almond Stitch and Half Double BLO to create a cabled effect, but there were calculations involved and that was pretty intimidating. I did a sample of the kind of look I was aiming for a while ago:
Which became my guide for getting an idea of how many rows and what sort of measurements I’d be looking at. But yeah, going into this project I felt very unsure of myself. I also needed to write this in my crochet notebook:
No idea if it worked, but I think the fact that I wrote it did something to me and I got myself out of my head and made a start on it. Like with most things (cliché alert ahead) the first steps are the hardest part, but I guess it’s a cliché because it’s true.
I sort of went about getting the size of it from measuring the sample piece, as well as using the previous two sweater vests I made as a guide. This was a lot harder though, because the ratio of the rows with Almond Stitch were about 7 rows in width to 4 rows of the HDBLO, so it wasn’t as straight forwards as using one kind of stitch. I roughed out a pattern using a spreadsheet and Photoshop.
Here’s version 1:
The blue represents the Almond, while the yellow is the HDBLO. The eagle eyed amongst you will notice that I changed it to 8 rows of Almond instead of the 7 I did in the sample. I wanted all the rows to begin on an odd row number, so if I went with 7, the rows would have been all messed up and some facing the wrong way etc. As I was crocheting, I also amended the pattern to make a slightly different look, with a wider patch of Almond in the middle, in order to make it more symmetrical. That was something that was irritating me for the longest time- I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if this wasn’t symmetrical! Ok, yes a little extreme I know, but it wouldn’t have sat well with me is what I probably should have said. Here’s the amended pattern:
The first half of the first panel was the hardest to devise, because that would form the basis of the whole thing. The second half would be mirrored and the back would be identical to the front, but with a shallow rounded dip for the neck, rather than a v-neck.
Also, to achieve the v-neck was another headache! It was hard to know when to start decreasing down for it and how many stitches to decrease by, in order to get the tip of the ‘v’ to finish where I wanted it to (the right height on the garment, as well as at the right width across or I was at risk of the the piece being too narrow- I really didn’t want this one to be too form fitting as it wasn’t the look I was going for here). I also didn’t want it too wide or rounded, but also not too pointy. I full on sound like Goldilocks here don’t I. I swear I’m not this high maintenance in real life! Surely you can see now why I was putting off making this one for the longest time?! These patterns I made were a massive help in figuring this all out, but it was still very much an anxiety ridden process trying to get it how I wanted and full on nerve-racking whenever I got my tape measure out to see if I was on the right tracks! But, I needn’t have worried- I got the v-neck exactly how I wanted it…
Just a quick note on the colour scheme- the off white for the main body is the traditional colour of these things and the green represents my beloved county team Worcestershire! Where myself and my brother spent many a summer… Below is me receiving a signed autograph bat from cricketing legend Gareth Batty when I was 16, for being a runner up in the ‘draw the county ground’ competition. Definitely peaked then didn’t I.
After I had created both the back and front panels, it was time to add the ribbing. I couldn’t decide (quelle surprise) how I wanted the ribbing to look, so I created 3 mockups on the photo of the test fitting. Why I am smiling so much I have no idea.
This one felt too all over the place in terms of continuity. The mix of the neck ribbing being white with the arm ribbing being green just looked a mess in all honesty!
This one felt closer, but the white ribbing didn’t give enough ‘balance’ at the top, so the design as a whole felt a bit ‘off’.
This is the one I went with- well, almost. I did start crocheting the arms with the white strip in the middle, but a few rows in, I decided it was looking too messy, so unravelled and started again with just the green. I feel this was the right choice- it has much more of a cleaner look like this.
I kept the white strip on the neck though, because I feel it pulls the design together and the neck ribbing is one stitch wider (6 total) than the arms which are 5 stitches, so it would accommodate it better. And I think the neck would have looked too plain without it.
Another quick note on the neck ribbing- I actually stitched a row of slip stitches around the base of it in order to achieve a clean looking ‘v’. I was very concerned that this wouldn’t turn into a sharp ‘v’, or would become stepped like the raw edges, so I decided upon this foundation row. I wouldn’t usually work one of these in because it can result in the garment being less stretchy around the neck, but as this is a v-neck with a lot of space for the head to fit through, it wouldn’t have mattered if I lost a bit of stretchiness in that department.
I also ran out of green part way through adding the ribbing and as I bought the yarn ages ago, there was no way I’d have been able to get the same dye lot etc, or even the yarn itself. But luckily, remember that hat I made as my first crochet thing? I found myself ‘frogging’ (undoing) it and using the yarn from that. Which I was totally fine with. The hat has just been sitting in my yarn storage box for the best part of a year- I made it much too big by mistake so wouldn’t be wearable. Whereas this, I will actually wear it. I feel enough time has elapsed since making the hat to lose any sentimental value surrounding it, especially with it being my first piece. But I have photos and memories of creating it and I’d much rather something I’ll actually use, rather than something which will just sit there.
Right, I think I’m done! This was a long one, congrats if you made it this far and I hope it made sense- apologies if not! Technical details below, some more finished pics after…
Total weight: 288g
Front panel: 124g
Back panel: 134g
Neck and arm ribbing: 30g
4mm hook, using 100% acrylic Wendy Supreme DK yarn (in which I have about 260ish grams remaining- I purchased 500g of this way back when, because I had no idea how much I’d need)! So expect some more off white garments from me in the near future! xo
I simply can’t stop crocheting, can I?! This was my first ‘scrap yarn’ project- I don’t have a huge stash, because I’m not really about that (though I’ll admit it’s sometimes kind of tempting to purchase when I do see a nice looking yarn), but I do have yarn left over from other projects, which needs putting to good use. I also wanted to try doing a slightly more cropped version of the previous vest I made, as well as it being a fairly basic/ simple ‘nice’ project to do while I work through some personal stuff. I basically used the same pattern as the yellow vest, but did it 14 stitches (around 2.5 inches) shorter.
This is my only wearable project thus far I’ve not had to start again or undo when making it, which obviously felt good! I think that was down to having already created the pattern prior and using the same yarn brand/ weight etc, so there was no issue in terms of those variables.
It did however, go through an extensive design process! These were the front sketches:
Oh yeah, before I go any further, the yarn I wanted to use up was the blue and grey, but purchased the black as the ‘binding’ yarn if you like- because I wouldn’t have had enough with just the two colours, and black was the colour which pulled the design together the best. Or, at least in the vision I had for this garment. This was all trial and error, just using estimates, but whatever my guesses were, I was pretty bob on with the quantities, because now I only have 5g of the grey yarn left and about 1g of the blue yarn, so I think I did pretty well overall! I also only have 20g of the black yarn left, so even after buying a new ball, I don’t have much left at all. While we’re on yarns and weights and all that, I used the Women’s Institute Premium (100%) DK Acrylic Yarn and the total garment weight is 213g. So that’s nice to know when creating something similar in the future. I used a 4mm hook throughout, including the ribbing.
Above is the finished front, and as you can see on the initial design on the image prior- I pretty much produced it exactly to my sketch. The back though, was a little more of a minefield:
The front I was able to be a bit more free with the design process, because even though I knew I had limited yarn quantities, I knew whatever design I did (within reason) I wouldn’t be overdoing it with any colour and I knew I’d have enough to go through with the design I wanted. With the back, I then had limited yarn quantities left, so I had to design with that in mind. I wanted it similar to the front, but it didn’t need to be the same (and with the amount of yarn I had left it couldn’t have been anyway), so it went through a fairly vigorous iteration process. I even moved from my sketchbook to Photoshop, because I knew I’d be doing a lot, and it was easier to change design aspects faster using a computer.
Some were just way off the mark and much too complicated/ not in keeping with the simplicity of the front, so I had to scale it back a bit. Plus the ones with more colour blocks would have just looked a bit of a mess to be honest. I initially settled on this design:
But midway through, I realised I needed to add more blue to it or I would have been left with loads and therefore be defeating the object of this scrap yarn project, so I added a bit more blue after the black:
And in my opinion, it turned out pretty nicely and used up the adequate amount of yarn required to make this project worth it! If I’m being picky, the grey in the top right corner could have done with around 4 more stitches in height, as I think it looks a little short and off balance, but like I said, that’s me being me basically! It also would have left me with even less grey, which would have been nice, because now I have 5g swimming around my yarn box. I’ll likely find something to do with it, I’m sure…
I wanted to make the design a little more interesting than just stripes/ checks- so I have something completely different to what I already have in my wardrobe and something that you don’t really see too often in shops. I think I satisfied the brief well with this design. It’s not over the top wild, but there’s more interest/ detail taking it past something more basic. Not that there’s owt wrong with a bit of stripes (I own a lot of striped stuff- plus the last garment I crocheted was striped), it just wasn’t the look I was going for in this instance.
This was only meant to be a short post, she says, already exceeding the 800 word count! I just can’t help myself can I?! I’ll leave with a few more images then: the finished garment with me wearing it, a few close ups, plus the pattern, should I wish to refer to it quickly again in the future without rifling through pages of my notebook. See you in the next one xo
Because I’ve mainly made sweater style things thus far, I wanted to try something a bit different, so I decided to make a shirt. And it is summer now (despite the rain). Crochet shirts are a style of top I’d definitely wear, as well as being a whole new challenge in terms of my crochet ability. I watched a fair amount of tutorials on YouTube, so kind of had an idea of how I wanted to go about about this project (special shoutout to FTK crochet, who have some sick designs/ tutorials on their channel), but there was no pattern I was following directly in terms of colour scheme or otherwise. I actually took the measurements from a shirt I already own, as it’s one I really like the fit of.
A month later and I was the lucky owner of this! I think it’s my favourite crochet item I’ve made to date:
I must say I absolutely love the fit/ shape, as well as the colour scheme and everything else! I seriously CAN NOT wait to start wearing this out to places. I am seriously proud of it, and it excites me where next to go with my crochet.
I’ll do a bit of a pattern/ making of etc here, so I can easily call on this should I want to make something similar in the future… Before I forget, this was all crocheted using a 3mm hook and 100% cotton WI Hobbycraft ‘that’s so cotton’ yarn, in colours ‘ecru’ and ‘navy’. As these things often do, it all started with a quick sketch of my idea:
Though this looks a bit like one of those horse racing kits I remember seeing as a kid in the newspaper whenever there was a major race on!
And in true Flora Martyr fashion, there was a couple of obligatory restarts (though nothing too major this time round thankfully). I don’t actually remember exactly why I restarted- I think it was because to do with the length of the starting chain and it growing/ shrinking etc once I added a few rows of stitches and the fact that I didn’t like the edges. Which lead me to learning how to do standing stitches at the start of each new row, instead of chaining 2 or 3, which leaves those big gaps and doesn’t make the piece look quite as nice. These standing chains make the edges look super flush and I’ll 100% be using them going forwards. Here was my test piece for learning that:
I created the back panel first, the final measurements being 19.2x21.5 inches, and I was working side to side, rather than bottom up, allowing me to get the vertical stripe effect. There were 62 (double crochet) rows across the back (31 stripes), weighing 218g. And each row took approximately 12 minutes each.
For the two front panels, they were essentially the same process and size as the back, but half size vertically (30 rows/ 15 stripes), going from blue to blue (allowing me to pattern match with the back panel), plus leaving a space in the middle for the white button band later on. Each of these weighed 104g each. My tension was clearly on point!
After I was done with each panel (back, front 1, front 2), I weaved the ends in, because there were soooo many and didn’t want to save it for the end. That would be extremely masochistic, even by my standards!
After all the three main panels were done, I pinned it together using stitch markers for a test fitting, to check if I had gone wildly off course with my measurements or anything. Luckily I had not, so to crack on with the sleeves was next.
I had no idea how long etc I wanted the sleeves to be, so to help me decide, I fixed a bit of fabric using masking tape to test out the length/ size I wanted. Very technical, I know…
The sleeves took around 5 hours each and measured 6.2x16 inches approx, each weighing 54g (before adding the ribbing). I thought adding a small bit of trim to the edges would add a bit of extra ‘something’ to the design, so I used 3 rows of single crochet. This gave just the right amount I think. Note to future self: started with the ‘right’ side facing towards me for the ribbing.
Originally, I hadn’t intended for the ribbing to cinch the sleeves in like on the above image, but it was one of those happy accidents I was pleased with. Without it, I feel the sleeves would have come across too baggy and shapeless. With this in mind, I did the same to the bottom of the garment at the end of the construction, which really helped bring shape to the whole thing.
Then, it was time to crochet it all together. I attached the shoulders together first, leaving a 7.5ish inch hole for the neck- this definitely gave me the most anxiety, because I was really nervous whether it would be too big/ small, but it actually turned out just right. I then attached the sleeves and stitched up the sides. Next, was to add the aforementioned hem/ ribbing all the way around the bottom, followed by the button panels. Lastly, was the collar. Though in future, I would swap the latter two stages around, because the collar changed how it hung a little, so I actually ended up needing to redo the button hole placement. Which didn’t take that long, but it was a step I could have done without.
The collar, I started with the right side facing towards me (like with all the ribbing) and single crocheted 13 rows round the neck, increasing by two on the 5th, 7th, 10th and 13th rows. No exact science, just guesswork!
I’ll stick a few more pics down below of the finished item, so you can see it in more detail. Right, that’s me off to go do something else for a little while… xo
