Luxurious Lace Sweater

I finished this last night. This is from the book Total Crochet Fashions by Gayle Bunn. I've been eyeing this book for a while and when it went on clearance, I bought it. It has some nice things in there. The pattern I made is called Luxurious Lace Cowl Sweater.


















I started this project almost 2 weeks a go. I used yarn in my stash left over from the Empress Baby Doll Top. The yarn is Bernat Softee Baby in Lilac. I used a total of 3 skeins but if it was the same dye lot, I would probably only need 2! After finishing the back and 1/4 of the front, the next skein of yarn was a different color! Too late, I thought I'd make the best of it. I left it a lone for a day and then continued with this sweater. I was able to find another skein of yarn w/ the same bright, shiny purple. I thought I'd mix it in to another part of the sweater.





This is all done in a very easy shell pattern. Double Crochet and Single Crochet. The back piece was a breeze. I had trouble on the sleeve cap (and cowl). The sleeve cap took me about 3 days to do. The directions were a bit confusing to me. I didn't know if I was following the directions right because I couldn't get it to work out. Then I would frog it and try it the other way and still it wouldn't work out. I must of frogged the sleeves cap 4 to 5 times. Finally on the 3rd day, I just made some changes to the pattern and made it work. I followed the direction same for rows 1 -3 then instead of repeating last 4 rows again, I repeated rows 2 and 3 only once then follow directions for: All sizes next row (WS) and Next Row (according to directions) but did those 2 rows twice. And finished w/ size 2 and L only, work 1 row even of pattern. In case anyone is making this pattern!






I was excited to start the motifs for the cowl but started having some trouble again, so I decided to scratch it all together. I'm not sure if I was already too frustrated with it.






I really ended up liking the sweater, even w/ the different color yarn. I think it look a LOT better than the photos. The flash really brings out the 2 color tones but in person, it's more subtle. It fits well and I would wear it. In fact, I'm looking forward to wearing it. I think the cowl part of the sweater would only get in my way! I can see my daughter tugging at it. I was even considering making another one but all in yarn of the same dye lot! I probably won't because I have purchased a new pattern book and I'm slowly, very slowly working on the sweater, frou frou from the book Happy Hooker.


And of course, another picture of my beautiful daughter playing in her sand box. In the back ground is our neighbor's cat who adopted us.