Preview of Coming Attraction

Melissa Twinset

The crochet designer, Melissa Leapman, is absolutely my favorite.  Her designs are classy and well written and always up to date. Crochet With Style is an outstanding book.  Indeed, I’ve made every pattern in there!  I was especially taken with the stitch pattern that she used in a vest from that book.  My Reader’s Digest The Ultimate ource Book of Knitting and Crochet Stitches calls it the losenge stitch, although I think that Melissa used a variation in her vest pattern.  I wanted to use this stitch in my new design and since Melissa Leapman was my inspiration, I’m calling my new free pattern the Melissa Twinset.

I’m using the Cool Cotton that I bought at Smileys for 99 cents a skein.  I have 15 skeins and now that I’ve finished the cardigan, I still have enough to make a tank top to match. This sweater turned out very well.  It has a slight bit of shaping in the waist accomplished by simply doing several sc2tog along the waistband.  Below the waist, I’ve worked the losenge pattern but above the waist the pattern changes to alternating rows of single and double crochet.  I don’t want to call this pattern an “easy” because of the different stitches and the minor shaping but if you’ve been making garments for a while, this is more an “easy” than an “intermediate”.  Just a couple of more photos to whet your appetite!  I hope to have this finished and up on my blog this week.

 

Apres Ski Sweater

My Apres Ski Sweater turned out very well.  The alternating single crochet and double crochet pattern is attractive with this yarn, Red Heart Eco Ways.  As mentioned in an earlier post, Melissa Leapman, the designer, fashioned the hip area smaller than the bust area.  This didn’t work for me so I changed the shaping to include a narrower waist and hip and bust measurements that were equal.  If I were to make this again, I would put some wide ribbing along the bottom.  The bottom edge has very little give.  I love the big turtleneck, though.  This sweater is very warm and could almost be worn without a coat on a cold day.  The pattern is in Crochet Today magazine.

 

Snowy Day WIPs

There’s nothing like a snow day to help you make some headway on those works in progress.  The Gold Nugget Tweed Throw is worked with Red Heart Fiesta.  This yarn has beautiful flecks of jewel-toned colors throughout.  The pattern calls for black Fiesta with additional skeins of solid black, off-white and honey in Red Heart Soft.  My living room colors are mainly browns and golds so I swapped out the black skeins for brown combinations.  The throw is already stunning.  It works up very easily but there are lots of ends to weave in so I’m doing that as I go along.

Melissa Leapman is a great crochet designer.  Her patterns never fail to be classy and classic at the same time.  Her instructions are easy to follow.  She avoids phrases like the dreaded ” work right side like left side, reversing shaping”.  Instead, she give detailed instruction for each side of a sweater.  Her Apres Ski Sweater pattern published in the most recent issue of Crochet Today is one example of her timeless style.  As I was reading over the pattern, however, I noticed that the shaping is a bit unusual.  She has the waist area larger than the hip area.  Knowing in advance that this will be a huge no-no for me, I altered the pattern to include a little decreasing in the waist.  I kept the bust and hip measurement  the same. 

Red Heart Eco Ways yarn is made with recycled polyester and acrylic.  I like to be able to machine wash my sweaters so I tend to favor synthetic yarns.  The Cinnabar color of Eco Ways contains little flecks of undyed fibers.  This appears a lot like lint in the sweater as you work the project.  It’s not enough to give a tweed look but just enough to make it look like you washed it with a terry cloth towel.  I don’t know if this is normal for this yarn or is just happening with the color I chose.  I don’t really like this effect.  Maybe some of you who have used this yarn will tell me if you have had the same problem.

 

Green Vest

This is another Melissa Leapman pattern.  I used Paton’s Grace Cotton for this vest.