Blue Japanese Top – Ta-daaaaaah!

10 Wednesday Apr 2013

Posted by Natasja in My crochet, Ta-daah!, Yarnbombing

Tags

crochet, Japanese crochet, wearable crochet

Here it is. My blue crochet top hooked from a Japanese pattern!

This is my second project from a Japanese pattern. The first one was the red variegated scarf which I blogged about here. The scarf was given away as a gift, so this is the first item I can wear.

I really, really, like it! It feels great walking around London in something I crocheted myself (that always feels good), but this time I add a swagger because I know that the pattern I followed didn’t have one single word in English to guide me!

Focus on the close-up of the crochet, not the tiramisu (if you can…)

Back view

The nitty-gritty is as follows:

Pattern: On Ravelry this pattern is called #4 2-way Top because that’s really what it is. You have two construction options. My way, and leaving the front open to make it into a cardigan. It’s from the Japanese book Easy Popular Knit and Crochet Wear which I bought from Pomadour24 on Etsy.
Crochet hook: 3 mm
Modifications: To make it the right length I had to add a few rows of the shell pattern before starting with the fan pattern at the bottom. If I could, I would have added extra squares but I had ready crocheted the shell rows on either side of the squares so couldn’t go back and add more squares to make it longer.
Yarn: I used Garnstudio Drops Delight in Shade 03. The yarn is a holiday momento from a weekend in Barcelona in January. I bought it at a shop called All You Knit Is Love. The sweetest little shop! Tucked away in a alley close to the Picasso museum. If you find yourself in Barcelona, be sure to pop in.

Yarn!!!!

Japanese crochet really isn’t that difficult. Honestly. At the end of this blogpost I give a few pointers and links to helpful websites.In case you’re wondering, yes I’ve already bought the yarn to crochet my next Japanese top. I mean, I have a whole book filled with patterns. How can I not?!

*The setting for these photos is of course Genoa, Italy on the weekend of their citywide yarnbombing, Intrecci Urbani. I blogged about it here.

Mainly Grey Sweater Ta-daaaah!

21 Friday Dec 2012

Posted by Natasja in My crochet, Ta-daah!

≈ 19 Comments

Tags

crochet, crochet edge, crochet sweater, wearable crochet

Here it is people, my Mainly Grey Sweater. Ta-daaah!!!!

crochet sweater

I first blogged about it on 31 October, and the yarn was bought way back in May so this has been the longest that I’ve worked on, or planned for, a crocheted sweater. Yarnbombs and hospital visits happened and of course the fact that it consists of 58 squares (!) made it a lengthy project. But it’s done now and I really like it!

The nitty-gritty of the sweater is as follows:

Pattern: Driftwood, a free pattern on the Lionbrand website which you can find here

Yarn: 17 balls of Garnstudio Drops Merino Extra fine in shade 04 (medium gray) and one ball of Sublime Extra Fine Merino DK in redcurrent. I never expected to use 17 balls for this. At £3.10 each that’s £52.70. That’s more that I would pay in the shops for a sweater, but what can you do? No-one said my crochet obsession was going to be cheap. On the up side, I now have a handmade crochet sweater unique to me, so I guess that’s priceless.

Hook: 5 mm

Construction: 58 squares of 11.5 cm x 11.5 cm, two mesh side panels and two mesh sleeve panels

All of the 58 squares had to be blocked before I could sew them together. It was a big job, but so worth it.

Blocking crochet squares

When the sewing together was done, it was time to add the finishing touches. The pattern said I have to do a round of SC followed by a row of slip stitches all around the neck, sleeves and bottom edge. I sort of did what they said….

I did the row of SC in gray as instructed, but then added my HDC of red. Ooo wee, I had been waiting so long for this! The red makes my grey siiiiing!

But wait, there’s more. For my last row, again in gray, I did SC, sl st, SC, sl st etc. all round. (I didn’t want to end with red as it would be too obvious, so I needed to finish it all off with another row in gray.) When I turned my work around, I saw that the wrong side of that SC, sl st, SC, sl st row was actually more interesting than the right side, so I made the back, the front. In other words my edging was done as follows:

Row 1: With wrong side facing, SC one row. Turn. (This is as the pattern instructs me to do.)

Row 2: With right side facing, HDC in red. Turn. (The photo above).

Row 3: With wrong side facing, *SC, sl st*.

This photo shows you the end result. A spidery, lacy row of grey over the red stitches.

SC Sl st pattern

This is the neckline of my sweater. I love that intricate grey lines over the red.

The pattern calls for mesh inserts on the sides, for size M and upwards, and elongated triangle shape inserts for the sleeves. I think this is genius as it turns the square sweater into something more shapely.

Here you can see the top of the sleeve inserts. They taper to a point towards the bottom edge of the sleeve.

crochet sweater sleeve inserts

This photo shows off the side mesh insert. When I was making the inserts I thought it would be very obvious, but it really isn’t.

side inserts driftwood crochet sweater

The construction of this sweater is extremely adaptable. All you need are 58 squares of 11.5cm x 11.5cm each. That means this pattern can work with granny squares, or any type of square motif as long as it’s 11.5 cm squared! You’ll just need the Driftwood pattern for the mesh inserts. Isn’t that great? Here we have a basic crochet sweater pattern, made up of squares that is wide, wide, wide open to creative interpretation. It’s the kind of pattern you will go back to time and time again. It’s also excellent for beginners.

I’m thinking of making a similar sweater in a summery cotton using one of Jan Eaton’s 200 Crochet Blocks patterns. Can you see it? It would be really great in bright summery colour(s).

Next time when I see a sale on DK cotton yarn, I’m going to buy 17 balls. Yes, my love of crochet is overriding my budget constraints. I’m sure you understand.

Crochet earrings ta-daaah!

10 Monday Dec 2012

Posted by Natasja in My crochet, Ta-daah!

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

crochet, crochet jewellery, Etsy, jewellery

It feels like forever since I last showed you a completed crochet project. I guess that’s the way when yarnbomb cravings hit, you have 58 squares to crochet and husband goes for an operation.

Fear not, I have been putting my crochet hook to good use and today I have something to show you. Five things actually.

Ta-daaaah! Behold five pairs of crochet earrings.

crochet earrings and crochet thread

Four of these are Christmas presents and one pair is for me. Seeing as the four recipients read this blog, I won’t tell you which pair is mine. What I can tell you is how I made these earrings.

The nitty gritty of the earrings:

Yarn: The Anchor crochet thread I used for all of these, is from The Making Spot’s giveaway that I won in October.

Pattern: Dainty Dangles Crocheted Earrings by Chanteuse Crochet. There are eight crochet earring designs in the pattern, so the $2.50 is very good value for money. I only used three of the eight designs. The pattern tells how to attach the earring hooks and also give instructions for blocking and the use of spray starch.

Hook: 1.5 mm Clover soft touch

Pair 1 – Delicate Fan Earrings, using Anchor Freccia 6 in shade 00320:

mustard crochet earrings

Pair 2 – Funky Granny Earrings, using Anchor Mercer Crochet 20 in shade 0149:

navy granny square crochet earrings

Pair 3 – Simple Circle Earrings, using Anchor Baby Soft 8 in shade 0048:

Pink crochet earrings

Pair 4 – Simple Circle Earrings, using Anchor Freccia 6 in shade 01442. These are bigger than the light pink earrings seeing as the crochet thread is thicker:

turquoise crochet earrings

Pair 5 – Simple Circle Earrings, using Anchor Freccia 6 in shade 00255. To get the earrings so big, I replaced the US dc in the pattern, with US trebles:

green crochet earring

I actually have very bad luck when it comes to earrings. For some reason I always seem to loose one. Just one. Seriously. When I get home in the evenings the first thing I do (after saying hello to hubby of course) is take off my shoes, wrist watch, rings and earrings. Many a time I only need to take off one earring. Heaven knows how you can loose an earring without knowing it. And I’m not talking only dangling earrings, studs as well!

But now that I have this pattern, and I’ve seen how quickly the earrings can be whipped up, I’m going to make myself more. If I loose one I can make its replacement within minutes!

Bring it on ye wizard of disappearing earrings. I have an crochet earring pattern and a big stash. Bring it on.

crochet earrings and crochet thread

A Manly Scarf

28 Friday Sep 2012

Posted by Natasja in My crochet, Pattern, Ta-daah!

≈ 11 Comments

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scarf

Check out my Dad modelling a crocheted scarf!

Doesn’t he look like Sean Connery?

The scarf is a Christmas present for one of Hubby’s friends. I started work on it on 20 August and finished it while Dad was visiting me. I just had to rope in Dad to play model – that beard and suntanned skin is perfect for a winter accessory photo shoot.

Check out the “I’m staring into the Great Wide Yonder” pose:

And “I have to wear my sunglasses against the glare of the snow”:

~~Dad~~ The model requested a mug so that he could “make the blog people think it’s very cold. Brrrrr.” No really, he said Brrrr out loud. Method modelling obviously works for him.

If I can drag you away from David Gandy-30-years-from-now, I’ll tell you about the scarf.

I was inspired by Jan Eaton’s chocolate box block from her 200 Crochet Blocks book . I used chocolate box for my livingroom couch cushions and they look really great. To my great surprise I turn the cushions so that chocolate box is at the front, more than the Roses & Daisies. Who would have thunk?

This scarf is basically just a row version of the chocolate box square. I thought I was very clever turning a square into a row. Little did I know that the stitch is an existing crochet stitch called Brick Stitch. I found this out when I bought Robyn Chachula’s Crochet Stitches Visual Encyclopedia. Right there on page 15 is my Manly Scarf sans the Sean Connery lookalike! So much for originality. On the other hand, I was quite pleased to see that my handwritten filofax pattern looks almost identical to Robyn’s diagram for the stitch. Brownie point for me.

The nitty gritty of the scarf:

Pattern: Brick stitch as per my pattern below. For more accurate instructions than my handwritten scribble, see Crochet Stitches Visual Encyclopedia. (On Amazon you can “Look inside” the book and if you log into Amazon you’ll be able to see the full written and diagram instruction for this pattern.) The @ on the edges of my pattern tells me where I should put the stitch markers to indicate the top of the 3 chain turning chain. I know it seems a bit over the top, but whenever I’m doing anything with straight lines I rely heavily on my stitch markers to keep track of the top of my turning chains.

Hook: 4.5 mm. I know the photo above says 4mm, but once I started working on the scarf I felt that a 4.5 mm was better.

Yarn: I used seven colours varying from 100% acrylic, to an acrylic & wool mix, to 100% wool. They were:

Charcoal: Stylecraft Life DK

Claret: Stylecraft Special DK

Gray: Stylecraft Special DK

Black: Stylecraft Life DK

Turquoise: Schoppel-Wolle Admiral 6-fach left over from the Childhood Memories shawl

Silver: Stylecraft Special DK

Mocha: Stylecraft Special DK, left over from the Identity Crisis blanket

The tassels I made using my Finishing Techniques for Crochet book, but you can also get the instructions here. It’s extremely easy to do. Promise. Whenever the tassel is attached to a DC row, I used three strands, and for a SC row, I used two strands.

That’s it. One manly scarf as modelled by Dad.

Thanks for making the scarf look so great Dad, and for being such a great (role)model. ♥

Japanese scarf Ta-daah!

06 Thursday Sep 2012

Posted by Natasja in My crochet, Ta-daah!

≈ 20 Comments

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crochet, Japanese crochet, scarf

Raise your chopsticks crocheters, my first crochet item from a Japanese pattern is done!

I know it’s only a scarf and that once you get the motif under the belt, it’s just a case of repeating it a hundred times – literally, so it’s probably not the fanciest, most intricate piece of Japanese crochet, but still. I’m proud of it and I think my friend will like it too.

I’ve shown you the halfway mark and some sneak peak photos but this photo really shows off the intricate lacyness to its best (hanging from a hanger, hooked onto the Ikea floor lamp. As you do.)

Doesn’t the scarf look great with the coat (hanging from the neighbour’s fence. As you do.)?

I just love a scarf that can throw shadows on your coat! To get the scarf this open and fine, you absolutely have to, have to, have to block your work. Have a look at my halfway mark blogpost and you’ll see how the scarf looked before blocking. For this scarf, blocking isn’t optional, it’s essential.

The magic of this scarf and yarn combo is that eventhough it’s super light, open and lacy it’s still nice and warm as a scarf should be. And there’s so much going on! Every motif is different.

I think the variegated yarn really works extremely well with this scarf. The scarf in the book was done in navy and it looks great, but I think variegated yarn looks better. On the other hand, it might be that I’m just biased seeing as I really can’t imagine enjoying crocheting 100 navy motifs, but 100 uniquely different motifs, that I could do.

The nitty gritty of the Japanese scarf:

Pattern: Pattern no. 17 from Ondori Motif Crochet – Japanese cloth, sold as an e-book on Etsy.
Yarn: 4-ply variegated sock yarn by Garnstudio, called Fabel in shade 911p
Hook: 4 mm
Modifications made: The pattern calls for 6 rows of 20 motifs each, but I only did 5 rows.

I hope I’ve inspired you to also try your hook at Japanese patterns. It really isn’t that difficult. Honestly. If I can do it, anyone can! (If you need a couple of pointers, I give links to helpful websites towards the end of this blogpost.)

Konichi wa hookers!

The Making Spot crochet along

27 Monday Aug 2012

Posted by Natasja in CAL, My crochet, Ta-daah!

≈ 16 Comments

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crochet, crochet along, crochet jewellery, Instagram, The Making Spot

Are you taking part in The Making Spot crochet along? I’m so taking part, I’m done! Over the Bank Holiday weekend I finished the bracelet and I really, really, really like it. Thank you to The Making Spot for introducing me to tiny crochet hooks and crochet thread!

The nitty gritty of my bracelet:

The bracelet design I chose from the four given in the pattern, is Bracelet with Crocheted Balls. You can find the pattern on the Coats Crafts UK website here.
I used Aida 10 crochet thread in silver grey and a 1.5 mm crochet hook
In the end I didn’t use the monofilament thread and diamante clasp you can see in this post, but went for my first choice of 3 mm silver ribbon to thread the balls and glass beads.

Not only is The Making Spot hosting the crochet along, you can also take part in The Big Flower Swap:

If you’re not content with sharing a photo of your finished crochet online, why not send it into us here at Crochet Along HQ? We’ll send you someone else’s flower so you will receive some pretty petals in the post! Before the swap ends and we post back your blooms, we’ll photograph everyone’s flowers in a DIY Crochet Flower garden.

To join in the Big Flower Swap: crochet one or several flowers from the free pattern, and post them (along with a stamped, self-addressed envelope) to: Crochet Along, The Making Spot, Future Publishing, Bath BA1 2BW, England.

I made the big flower from the necklace pattern and posted it this morning. It would be great if one of my blog readers receive my flower, and even greater if I receive one of your flowers!

So here is my bracelet for the crochet along, and flower for The Big Flower Swap. It’s been an education working with crochet thread and a small hook, and I love it! (I loved it so much I already have a plan to crochet rosebud earrings to match my bracelet. )

The crochet along runs until the 28th of September, so you still have loads of time to crochet a bracelet and/or necklace and flower(s) for the swap.

One CAL done, another one to start: The theme for Rachell’s crochet along (working our way through Jan Eaton’s 200 Crochet Blocks book) has been decided on: Cottage Garden. I’m so happy! My stash is filled with cottage garden shades! Starting 1 September we are making block no. 1 and no. 2 from the book. All the information about this CAL is on Rachell’s blog.

So many things to get my hooks into! Love it!

Hand towels for my Dad

13 Monday Aug 2012

Posted by Natasja in My crochet, Ta-daah!

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

crochet, crochet applique

My Dad turned 60 in March this year. As a birthday present Hubby and I bought him a ticket to come and visit us here in England for 10 days in September. We started to plan the holiday in February, applied for his Visa in July and in last week he collected the visa and currency. All that’s left to do is for him to get on the aeroplane on the 7th September! (To put my excitement about this visit into context, this is the first time one of my parents will see the country I’ve been living in for 8 years, and the house I’ve been living in for 6 years. His visit is a BIG DEAL to me!)

As a welcome gift, I made my dad these crochet applique hand towels:

To understand the farm scene, you have to know that my Dad has been working as a Scientific Technician at the Department of Agriculture farm in Elsenburg, South Africa since 1974. Yes, 1974! His main field of expertise are milk cows. Two years ago he did his Masters Degree on the subject. It’s such a big part of my Dad, that I just had to do something cow and farm inspired for him.

I went for hand towels, as it’s something that he uses daily on the farm. His “office” (I’m using the term loosely as it’s actually a room with desk and chair in a farm outbuilding) also has a basin which he uses to wash his hands after a few hours in the dairy or the stables, so hand towels were the obvious choice.

The crochet appliques are a mixture of two oneandtwocompany patterns: the cow and shed from Cow Pig and Farm, and the tree from The Tree The Houses and The Cloud (I blogged about these cute crochet applique patterns here way back in February). It was so much fun making these, even more so since I knew it was for my Dad and he wasn’t expecting it. The patterns are easy to understand and work up really quickly.

It was essential that I use the cow for both towels, but to make each one special, I did one as a Jersey cow (the brownish) and one as a Friesian (the black and white). The yarn is Rowan Handknit Cotton and Stylecraft Cotton Classiqe with a 5 mm crochet hook.

I sewed the applique onto the towels with invisible thread. I got the idea of using invisible thread from Sarah London’s Crochet Love book (she calls it monofilament thread). It worked really well. You can’t see the stitches at all! I didn’t sew the ears of the cows onto the towel – I think it’s cute that they stand out and can be played with as you dry your hands…. not that my Dad would want to play with cow ears, but I like to give him the option.

Hubby came up with the idea of blanket stitching along the bottom in green yarn so that it would look like grass. I think it looks great and really “pulls everything together” – that’s a direct quote from Hubby. Such a clever husband!!

I really like how the towels turned out. I just hope my Dad feels the same.

(P.S. If you read this post and you know my Dad please don’t spoil the surprise.)

Childhood Memories shawl Ta-daaaah!

06 Monday Aug 2012

Posted by Natasja in My crochet, Ta-daah!

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crochet

Three balls of Schoppen-Wolle yarn + one 4 mm crochet hook + one London Olympics = crocheted shawl in a record breaking three days! Ta-daaaaah!

I soooo loved making this shawl. I honestly couldn’t stop hooking! The pattern is really easy to get your head around & remember, and of course the yarn… the gloriously colourful variegated 4-ply yarn which I bought at the Schoppen-Wolle factory!!!

It was a constant struggle to get me to put down the crochet hook.

Conversations in my head went something like this:
“I’ll just hook until the end of the red.” Reach the end of red.
“Maybe just keep going until the end of pink.” Reached the end of pink.
“Oooh, it’s going white!” Reached the end of white.
“I’m halfway through the row so I might as well keep going to the end of the row”. In the last shell of the row, white starts turning blue.
“Oooh, blue! So pretty! The blue will probably zing against the red of the previous row. I’ve just have to see this!”

You get the idea.

I also didn’t have just one shade of variegated yarn, I had two! I took my queues from the yarn as to where to stop using shade Parrot and join shade Spring Has Come. Some sections of Parrot was too orange and/or mustard for me, so I just cut those out. (I have no hang-ups when it comes to customizing a pattern, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that I will customize my yarn to suit either).

The five hdc rows I did in the solid turquoise. This was a 6-ply yarn, so I upped to a 4.5mm hook for these rows.

I used more of Parrot than of Spring Has Come, as Parrot has the shades of blue and green that I love, although slightly different hues to Spring Has Come. The very last row, done as two groups of two trebles joined by a picot, of the shawl I did in Spring Has Come.

Speaking of the edging row. I just have to show you the amazing difference wet blocking makes. In this photo everything on the blue blocking board is still unpinned. The edge doesn’t look nearly as nice pre-blocking and even the shell rows open up once blocked.

Isn’t it amazing? Blocking really opens up the patterns and shows off your hard work so much better. It also made my shawl almost double in size. Never under-estimate the importance of blocking!

The nitty gritty of my Childhood Memories shawl:

The pattern is designed by Gabriele Ordenes and it’s called Recuerdos de infancia (which translated to Childhood Memories). You can buy the pattern here or here.
The yarn I used was Crazy Zauberball in shades 1701 (Parrot) & 2136 (Spring Has Come) and Admiral Starck 6 in shade 4780 (Turquoise).
4 mm crochet hook for the Zauberball rows and 4.5mm for the Admiral Starck rows.

This shawl is not end of variegated sock yarn obsession. No sirree. I have enough left over to crochet….. wait for it ……socks! You would think this is the logical use for sock yarn, but us crocheters don’t do socks much – I’m going to change that. Knitters make the most beautiful stripey socks and I want a piece of that action.

I don’t think I’ll wear my socks and shawl together though. That may be a bit much. Then again….. what’s wrong with having too much?!

Country Dreams Ta-daaaah!

01 Wednesday Aug 2012

Posted by Natasja in My crochet, Pattern, Ta-daah!

≈ 20 Comments

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crochet

I finished my second Garnstudio pattern, using Garnstudio Drops yarn and just like Whispers, it’s a huge success!

Behold “Country Dreams”:

I’m really happy with my teal blue creation!

If you look up the pattern here, you’ll see that it’s meant to be a tunic with two bands of open lace prettiness at the bottom. By now you know that I don’t wear anything that can draw attention to the widest part of my pear-shaped body, so I shortened the tunic by 10cm and turned it into a sweater.

I really enjoyed doing the lace bands from the diagram. It was an excellent way of teaching myself how to read the diagrams, as the pattern also provides written instructions for the lace band. I could look at the diagram, do what I think I had to do, and then check whether I was right by going back to the written instructions.

If you’re nervous about crochet diagrams, I suggest finding a pattern with diagrams and written instructions and doing the same.

The neck, bottom and sleeve edgings really finishes the tunic off nicely. If you wanted to, you could even leave out the lace bands and just add the edging and it would still be a beautiful.

The nitty gritty of my Country Dreams sweater/pullover/jumper/jersey (what’s the difference between these anyway?!) is as follows:

7 balls of Drops Safran in Petrol
3.5mm crochet hook
Modifications made: I left out the first band of lace plus three dc rows, which made the tunic 10cm shorter.
The pattern is available for free here

Just a note on the sleeves. They’re tight! I have thin forearms and I’d say average upper arms, yet the size M sleeves is a tight squeeze even around my wrists. As Safran is cotton, it will probably stretch with time, but I just had to point this out to anyone who wants to crochet this tunic, especially if you’re not going to use a cotton yarn.

I’ve been wearing Country Dreams today and it really is a pleasure to wear. Already it feels a bit softer and more drapey than it did last night when I tried it on for the first time. A few hours of body heat is obviously doing it’s thing on the cotton.

My verdict on Drops Safran and the Country Dreams pattern: Lovely!

With Country Dreams completed, I got out my Schoppen-Wolle Crazy Zauberball and started working on the Childhood Memories shawl! I’m only a few rows in, and already I’m loving it. Oooo, you know what, Country Dreams will look B E A U T I F U L worn with this shawl!

I don’t think you’ll have to wait long to see the finished shawl though. I’m addicted to seeing the colour changes (sat up until midnight last night because I just couldn’t put it down) and the pattern is much easier than it looks. Watch this space!

Fleur Ta-daaaah!

07 Saturday Jul 2012

Posted by Natasja in My crochet, Pattern, Ta-daah!

≈ 7 Comments

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crochet

Fleur, also know as the Summer Vest Take Two is finished! Finally.

As I said in an earlier post, I haven’t been so excited or inspired to finish this one as my other pieces of wearable crochet. I do love the Hot Cross Bun stitch though (I even made a video about it) and I think I will use it again some day in a scarf or maybe even for a cushion cover, so the problem is not the pattern, it’s me. (Sounds like I’m doing a break-up speech.)

There are a variety of reasons why I had such a hard time finishing Fleur:

I had to frog and unravel a whole other crochet project which sort of took away the “newness” and fun out of the project;
Once the yarn was unravelled it looked like 2 minute noodles which made it very prone to knots;
I had a lot of trouble getting the armhole shaping correct – more on that later;
I became a bit bored with the green yarn;
There’s doesn’t seem to be any incentive to finish this sleeveless top as Summer seems to have skipped the UK.

Due to the 2 minute noodle factor, there’s a big chunk of yarn that I couldn’t recycle for Fleur which means I had to be very thrifty with what I had. I mentioned this in passing to Hubby and he replied “How about a different colour for the neck? Just putting it out there.” Genius husband of mine! So that’s where the dark green edging (Patons 100% Cotton DK in shade 2727) around the neck and armholes idea came from.

Now for no. 3 on my list. I think there’s a mistake in the pattern. Honestly I do. It’s not just me that couldn’t figure it out. I contacted the only other person on Ravelry who had finished Fleur in size M, and she confirmed that she also had to fudge the armhole shaping. The stitch maths work out perfectly, but the instructions of where to make the decreases at the beginning & end of each row, seemed wrong.

I even contacted Rowan with my problem but to date they haven’t replied to my email. They also don’t have an errata, or as they call it, addendum, on their website for this pattern, so I had to figure it out myself. Just had to “make it work”, Tim Gunn style.

Here is my adaptation of rows 33 to 36 of the armhole shaping in Fleur for size M. I hope it can be of help to anyone else making this top. (The link will open up a PDF document. )

Changes made to Fleur

I’m done with green yarn now. Phew! Next on my list, is Country Deam in the lovely petrol blue Drops Safran yarn. Don’t you just love the start of new crochet projects? Getting your head around the new pattern, getting used to the feel of the new yarn, holding it up every 5 rows just to see how far you’ve crocheted. Oooh, I love it!