gen­uine mud­pie is two! :D

To cel­e­brate I’ve writ­ten my very first gar­ment pattern! 

 

A par­ty sweater, kind of like the rain­bow cake from gen­uine mud­pie’s first birth­day. The colour scheme also reminds me of pic­tures of cir­cus in chil­dren’s books :D

The pink and yel­low are scrap yarn giv­en to me so I don’t real­ly know what they are. The pink is prob­a­bly acrylic but the yel­low feels like mohair. I like how the the fuzzi­ness gives it dif­fer­ent textures. 

 

I did­n’t make this up all by myself though. It’s inspired by this knit­ted sweater by Kate Knits. I love the shape of it and real­ly want­ed to make it but I could­n’t under­stand the knit­ting instruc­tion. So I thought maybe I can make up some­thing sim­i­lar with crochet.

I also don’t know how to cal­cu­late stitch counts for dif­fer­ent sizes, but here’s the dimen­sion of the one I made, and I’ll pro­vide some guide­lines for mak­ing smaller/larger sizes. It’s mea­sure-as-you-go and cus­tomiz­able :D

Note: I blocked the top part of the sweater before tak­ing the mea­sure­ments below.

 

As you can see, the con­struc­tion is fair­ly straight­for­ward, and it works up very quick­ly (I made it over the East­er long week­end while watch­ing action movies on TV :D). Though I messed up the stitch cal­cu­la­tion for the shell pat­tern rows in the one I made, but I think I’ve got it fig­ured out now for the writ­ten pat­tern. But since this is the first time I try writ­ing a gar­ment pat­tern there may be lots of mis­takes — so if you try it and spot any­thing wonky please let me know, I’d great­ly appre­ci­ate any cor­rec­tions and feedback!

So let’s get to it! :D

Yarn: I used four 50g balls of sport weight yarn for the main colour (MC), plus a bit of pink (C1) and yel­low (C2). If you’re mak­ing a larg­er size more yarn will be required. 

Hook: 6mm — I want­ed the gauge to be pret­ty loose so the fab­ric will drape nicely.

Sweater is cro­cheted flat, bot­tom up, in two iden­ti­cal pieces (front and back) and sewn togeth­er at the shoul­der seams and side/underarm seams.

Guide­lines for smaller/larger sizes are in italics.

Body:

With MC, ch 56.

For smaller/larger size, minus or add 6 stitch­es in the foun­da­tion ch. 6 stitch­es mea­sures about 2″. 

Row 1: hdc in 3rd ch from hook, hdc in each ch across, turn. (55 hdc — the begin­ning ch counts as an hdc)

Row 2: ch 2 (turn­ing ch counts as an hdc.), hdc in next hdc, hdc in each hdc across, hdc in top of begin­ning ch, turn.

Repeat row 2 until piece mea­sures 13.5″.

For smaller/larger sizes, cro­chet to desired length mea­sur­ing from under­arm. Each hdc row mea­sures about 0.5″.

Sleeves:

Row 1: at the end of last row of body, ch 7, hdc in 3rd ch from hook, hdc in each of the next 5 ch, hdc in each hdc across, hdc in top of begin­ning ch. Take hook off loop, but don’t fas­ten off.

Attach a sep­a­rate ball of MC to the top of the hdc that is direct­ly below the last hdc just made, ch 6, fas­ten off.

Place hook back in the loop where it was left off at the end of last row, hdc in each of the 6 ch just made, turn.

For smaller/larger size, minus or add mul­ti­ples of 3 ch on each of the sleeves, just be mind­ful that the total stitch count needs to be a mul­ti­ple of 6 plus 1 for the shell pat­tern lat­er on.

Row 2: ch 2 (turn­ing ch counts as an hdc.), hdc in next hdc, hdc in each hdc across, hdc in top of begin­ning ch, turn.

Repeat row 2 sev­en more times.

For smaller/larger sizes, mea­sure from top of shoul­der to under­arm, then minus 4″ (shell pat­tern rows),  and cro­chet to that length mea­sur­ing from the start of the sleeves. Each hdc row mea­sures about 0.5″.

Shell pat­tern rows:

Fas­ten off MC, attach C1.

Row 1: ch 3 (counts as 1 dc), 2 dc in first hdc, skip next 2 hdc, sc in next hdc, *skip next 2 hdc, 5dc in next dc, skip next 2 hdc, sc in next hdc*. Repeat from * to * until last 3 hdc, 3 dc in top of turn­ing ch, turn.

Row 2: ch 1, sc in first dc, skip next 2 dc, *5 dc in next sc, skip next 2 dc, sc in next dc, skip next 2 dc*. Repeat from * to * until last 3 dc, sc in top of turn­ing ch.

Fas­ten off C1, attach C2. 

Row 1: ch 3, 2 dc in sc, skip next 2 dc, sc in next dc, *skip next 2 dc, 5 dc in next sc, skip next 2 dc, sc in next dc*. Repeat from * to *, 3 dc in last sc, turn.

Repeat row 2 of C1.

Fas­ten off C2, attach C1. Repeat rows 1 and 2 of C2.

Fas­ten off C1, attach MC.

MC row: ch 2, hdc and dc in first sc, skip next 2 dc, hdc in next dc, skip next 2 dc, *[dc, hdc, sc, hdc, dc] in next sc, skip next 2 dc, hdc in next dc, skip next 2 sc*. Repeat from * to * until last 3 dc, hdc in top of turn­ing ch, turn.

Shoul­ders:

ch 2, hdc in each of next 13 hdc, dc tog next 2 hdc, fas­ten off.

Count 15 stitch­es from the end of the row toward the cen­ter, attach MC to the 15th stitch. ch 2, dc tog next 2 hdc, hdc in each hdc across, hdc in turn­ing hdc, fas­ten off.

For smaller/larger sizes, mea­sure how wide you want the neck open­ing to be and the width of your shoul­ders, and deter­mine the stitch count for the shoul­ders row accordingly.

Repeat entire piece once more.

Sew shoul­der seams together. 

Attach MC to cen­ter back of neck, sl st in each st around neck­line, fas­ten off and weave in ends.

Sew under­arm and side seams togeth­er. Weave in ends.

Attach MC to cen­ter back of the bot­tom of the sweater, ch 1, 1 sc in same st, 1 sc in each st around, sl st in first sc, fas­ten off and weave in ends. 

Note: I did­n’t cro­chet a fin­ish­ing round around the arm open­ings, I just made sure that I weaved in all the ends neatly.

Block if desired.

And it’s done! :D 

 

Here’s to a sec­ond won­der­ful year in the blo­gos­phere! Thank you so much for jour­ney­ing with me, look­ing for­ward to shar­ing more crafty adven­tures and every­day inspi­ra­tions with you :D