I just baught this book on e-bay.uk Ok, I know i wasn’t supposed to buy anything but it was real cheap and besides I didn’t intend to buy anything actually, I placed the minimum auction and won, and I was just browing, not shopping, for real, I swear…
I know the cover picture looks awfully out of fashion but

1. Sylvia Cosh is a big fish in the word of crochet and
2. I got it for real cheap, I swear! only 5 UK pounds shipping included! Isn’t that cheap?

I can’t wait to see what’s in it!

Swatching

I joined another crochet along on Crochetville, this one is for a vintage cardigan which pattern I already intended to do, I like the joined-squares-sweater type of design and this one looks really nice and easy to do.

I started with swatching attempts (my first time swatching, can you believe that? Maybe I'm growing up!). I crocheted two squares with the same "yarn" I used for my Victoria Secret Along skirt (WPI of 22).
The color didn't come out right, it isn't brownish in real life.

The first square was crocheted with a 2.5 mm hook (USA size C), the second one with a 5mm hook (USA size H... which was WAY quicker)
The smaller square doesn't reach 4 inches (it's 6cm wide : almost 2.5 inches) ... it's even far from this. It's also quite thick and sturdy. The bigger one is holy but has a nice floppy drape, it reaches 8 cm (slightly more than 3 inches), which I think is Ok even if the pattern calls for 10cm wide squares, I'll just play with the L size pattern.

I like the way the fabric of the bigger square behaves, and I want to use this yarn as I'd like to have someting to match my skirt... My problem is : how to join-as-you-go plain old squares ? I know how to do it with lacy squares but here...

Joining-as-I-go

I tried come up with a join-as-you-go method and here's what I did :

• At the end of square 1 I didn't cut the yarn, crocheted 12,
• crocheted 1 and started square 2 on that chain stitch,
• for every round, crocheted the last stitch of the third corner carrying the satrting chain of 12 on the wrong side,
• crocheted the last row of square 2 inserting crochet hook in the back loop of the last row of square 1.

eated a ridge between the 2 squares. What do you think? I don't know if I like it.

Besides, For square 3 I didn't crochet the yarn left between the squares : it creates a bump on the wrong side when you carry it along, I closed the last stitch of square 2, left a tail without cutting the yarn and started square 3. No bumps.

Pics (color is more accurate here) :

right side:

wrong side :

Those are not real back loop single crochet as I insert the crochet into the back loop and the body of the stitch (into the chore of the part of the body that looks like a V).
It's Sturdier but looks less floppy.
I don't know why my squares are curvy (they inherited it from me ? ) I swear I make sure the corner is done properly!
I'll try a few more squares and if I don't like it... Well my daughter will have a new purse.

Hesitating

I must admit I stopped working on my cardigan, I'm not satisfied with the look and feel of my swatch, I really wanted to use this yarn but i'm not satisfied. I'm still looking for the "good" yarn.

This is officially the end of the experiment... I frogged what I've done and added it to a new project

On the 13th of January 2007 I started working on Lelu's version of Victoria's Secret skirt.
If you're a faithfull reader (which I don't even doubt) you're aware that I bought some 24 pounds of a yarn of unknown nature and quite poor quality (first times on e-bay... you live, you learn) that I decided to wind up into variagated balls.
I did eventually find a yarn winder at a decent price (around 15 euros, that is less than 15 US dollars... on e-bay, mind you) and winded two strands of that red thread with one strand of a nice light pink rayon thread I had... Which I now think was a big mistake (the fire engine red just kills the light pink, and the soft shine of the rayon thread is just lost in translation ) but now that I've got almost 3 pounds of it, I'm gonna use it up!

So the skirt is the first project to help me get rid of benefit from my new fingering weight yarn.

I'm using a 2.5mm crochet hook ( USA size C according to this chart) and already used one 250g yarn ball :

As you may have noticed... I changed the pattern.

Sorry.

I just thought it needed a slit and a belt, to be able to put it on easily... looks like it didn't but, hey, now it's done... and I also noticed around diagram 2 that I had 7 stitches per repetition that shouldn't be there...

7

THAT'S AN AWEFUL LOT!

So I changed the pattern to let them fit in, and then I thought "as I'm going to have to line it, why bother with a solid stitch pattern? let's make it lacy!"
Which I did... And I think it looks ok... besides, lacy patterns crochet faster. And with less yarn... It's all good! Wait. Less yarn wasn't the goal...

Never mind.

I'm on the last rows now and the fabric is curling

I tried making the last row, it didn't help so I decided to skip it (intended to anyway) and steam-block : it worked!

here's the finished skirt:

Ok, so here are a few more details about my Victoria Secret Skirt experience.

First I must say that it was a very bad idea to change the pattern
. Although the result is not ugly, I did it in a very untidy manner which ends up giving a very untidy look.
When I modified the second section I did it improvising as I was going : bad, very bad idea !
I modified the third section of the skirt in a much more satisfying manner, I drew a graph and tried to figure out how it would come out before starting to crochet.
However, I didn't try to design this new part of the pattern in a way that responds to the other modified part, thus I end up with something looking like a bunch of non consistant designs instead of a silky finished garment.
You live... you learn.

Here you can see the changes I made :
skirt pictured with 3 skeins of yarn used up and picture of the graph I drew


Here you can see why I had to block and how I did it : steam block ( I had a duh! moment : pin the skirt on something you can move or be sure you can use the iron where you pinned it! I had to pin her twice because the iron couldn't reach it) and it worked great! :


1, 2 and 3 skeins of yarn used up
   

I somehow wish I didn't mess up with the original pattern this way, next time I'll be more cautious (or I'll just follow the pattern... why not? )

Stats :

• HOOK : Ariel aluminium 2,5 mm (US size C).
• YARN : homemade variagated fingering yarn, WPI 22, red with light pink, rayon and something, probably acrylic. Used almost 800 gr.