My February Challenge from Abakhan

I haven't done an Abakhan challenge for a couple of months. Mainly because I was either making Christmas presents or I had lost my crochet mojo. In the end my project wasn't finished until the 1st March so not sure if I can call it my February Challenge. I chose Sirdar Filigree in the colour Gemstone. yarn but I must admit that I didn't research the yarn first and so was a bit shocked to find out that it was eyelash instead of the silky look that I was expecting.

I was set a double challenge this month. Not only was I crocheting with yarn that I had never used for crochet before but I was making a sweater without a pattern. I have made sweaters without a pattern before but not something that was a complex shape, This is the sweater that I was challenged to make something a similar shape to.

This shows the sweater front with the start of my crochet pinned to it. It doesn't look that is is unusually shaped until you see another view.

I don't know if you can see the fishtail sides. The back was made in two pieces with the long shaped sides.

I used some newspaper to draft up a similar shape to the bought sweater. This next photo shows what the back panel looked like. The centre back is on the bottom of the photo.I used this method when I was a teenager and crochet patterns were scarce. I used to draft up patterns using my sweaters as templates. There were very few patterns for garments when I first leaned. Crochet patterns were mostly all mats and pillowcase trimming. When the trend for crochet dresses and hot pants hit the catwalk the wool industry was woefully lagging behind with their patterns.Everything is much easier for today's crocheters. There are so many crochet patterns and books to choose from.

The only snag with crocheting to this paper pattern was that the eyelash yarn that I was using was quite stretchy and the piece came out longer than I really wanted. In crochet though the yarn does weld itself together somewhat I should have factored in the fact that this eyelash yarn would stretch in wear. If you are trying to work out the shape then the straight edge at the bottom of the photo is the centre back.

I had to work around any mistakes as that yarn was difficult to unpick if I made a  mistake. I took these photos before the finished sweater went to be modelled at my friends. After she had taken it home I discovered  that I had placed the sweater on the mannequin crooked and so it doesn't look level it looks rather lop sided.

This is the front view. Essentially it is a short sweater with longer sides.

This is a view of one of the sides. Because of the yarn that I used dropped in length whilst hanging on the mannequin I should have made the sides a bit shorter. That is something that I should have taken into consideration when I was crocheting the sweater.

This is the back view. My friend Sarah has taken the sweater and will hopefully send me a photo soon of her modelling the sweater so that you will be able to see it properly, She was red eyed and full of a cold when she visited so didn't want her photo taken wearing the sweater.

This weekend I have been looking after my Son's 2 dogs as well as my own dog so not much crochet has been done. I have now started to make some Peter Pan collars to be attached to fabric dresses made by a dressmaker friend of mine.