Oops

So here’s what happened:

I got within spitting distance (or sleeve distance, at any rate) of finishing the light blue sweater, and realized three things: a) for some reason, even though I followed the directions exactly, the top of the sweater is looser than the bottom, and b) for a probably related reason, the left-hand front shoulder wasn’t working out quite right. So I had to take it out, just when I was ready to join up the front and back and see if the looseness was fatal or not; c) there’s no way it was going to be done in time to wear it this winter. Not that I’m complaining about the temperatures slowly inching upwards–far from it, I’m pretty excited every time we get above freezing–but it is rather demotivating when it comes to finishing bulky winter sweaters.

So I switched to the marigold short-sleeved sweater.

This pattern comes from the 2013 Vogue Crocheting magazine, where they made it in a size small. Super pretty, no? It’s motif-based, which means crocheting up endless (or 40) quantities of hexagons and joining them together. Let me tell you, I got pretty good at those motifs. By the end I could whip one off in about 30 minutes without even looking at the instructions. And every day, I was getting four or five added; who cared if I wasn’t sewing or quilting or reading or blogging or doing anything but crocheting soft yellow lacey hexagons, right? I was so close! I was going to finish a sweater, by god, any day now!

By last Thursday I had finished all the motifs and I had the end in my sights (so I thought). All I had to do was weave in the ends, add the edging, and voila! A short-sleeved sweater that I can wear, you know, soon.

First of all, with a motif construction involving 40 joined motifs, there are 80 ends to weave in. I’m about halfway through.

Second, those edgings take forever. I got the sleeves and the bottom edging done. I haven’t yet done the neck because, well …

Third, it’s … umm … perhaps a little indecent.

Mind you, you are supposed to wear this over a shell or t-shirt, not on its own. But holy neckline batman.

According to the magazine, I’m a size large in this sweater (it is Vogue, after all). Because it’s a motif construction, adding up a size means either scaling up the hook size (the medium pattern) or adding extra motifs (the large) and rearranging them slightly. So the very demure high v-neck of the size small and medium becomes a plunging v-neck in the large.

Thankfully, I can just add a couple of strategic partial motifs to bring the neckline a tad closer to my neck. Sort of like fig leaves, but softer. This should also stop the shoulders from becoming elbows. I’ll have to improvise the edging, but I’m not sure I’m keen on their neckline pattern anyway. I realize that the bright orangey-yellow makes me look even paler than I normally look, and can only ensure you that I do go outside and I do not have the flu. I love the colour anyway.

It’s also a fair bit looser than I’d hoped. It might shrink a bit when I block it (fingers crossed), but if not, and assuming I can fix the neckline issues, I think it will still be wearable and lovely, and next time I’ll make the medium and block up.