A Simple Melody

Well...missed a week, but I'm here now! We've all been hit by bugs here and I haven't wanted to do anything other than huddle under blankets (or is that my latest crochet excuse?)

Today marks the start of the #backtoschoolsweatercal - a crochet-along celebrating crochet garment making, and encouraging everyone to have a go. There is a blog hop running alongside, to help you choose a pattern and get started. If you haven't read any of the previous posts, you can start with Tamara of Crafty Escapism and her post about 5 Reasons to Make a Crochet Garment. It's my turn next week and I'll be talking about alterations, so be sure to pop back for that!

For the CAL I'm going to be making Uptown Sweater by Dora Ohrenstein, which is one of the patterns in the excellent book: Custom Crochet Sweaters. I've already made the Floating Tee from the book, and it was a very straightforward pattern with a beautiful end result, so I'm looking forward to trying another one.

Floating Tee, pattern by Dora Ohrenstein

I don't have the recommended yarn for the Uptown sweater, so I made a swatch using some leftover Wendy Ramsdale DK. I made a shawl with this yarn last year and it's so cosy, I love it! The swatch seemed fine, so I ordered some more yarn from Sconch yarn shop.

Might have overdone it slightly, because there was a sale on, but what was I supposed to do - leave some behind? Ahem.

I haven't started yet - I'm going to redo the swatch first, because I did it in a different colour, and I've been caught out before with slight differences between colours. I'll be posting updates on Instagram if you want to see how I'm getting on, and a weekly update here too - all being well.

I am also desperate to finish the Midcentury Blanket from Inside Crochet issue 75, that I started last March! I've been busy working on it the last two weeks and since I only had a few squares left to do, I thought I had loads of time to finish it before the CAL started, but it's taking much longer than expected.

It feels like no two squares are the same size and the slight wonkiness of some of them is driving me mad, so I'm taking my time joining them. From a distance, it looks great because it's a lovely quilt effect pattern, but I don't want to roll my eyes every time I look closely, so it's worth the extra time spent now. Hopefully!

I only have 3 rows left to add, and then perhaps a small border, so it should be finished soon. Handy, because the weather has really turned here, and we could always use another blanket.

See you next week!