Yeah, that’s it. It’s also been a different jumper and .. and .. bugger it ! – I’ve forgotten the first thing it was when I’d just bought the yarn. It’s Lion Brand Mandala, which I found I loathe; hence the frequent attempts to produce an article I didn’t.

Yeah yeah, I know I said and all that. But I’m a frightful liar. Yous should all know that by now. [grin]

Can anyone explain to me why all the various kinds of running shoes have those ugly turned-up toes ? – I really hate them because they make feet look like jokes.

Anyway, this is its final config.: I won’t be frogging this version. In fact, even though it’s bloody Mandala, I rather like it. And I’m SO HAPPY that I actually used all those cakes that had been re-wound on my yarn-baller so many times .. I feel virtuous. I AM virtuous. But that’s another thing yous all know ..

OK, so here’s my other FO of the moment: another cardi, but from this pattern

which I followed religiously (it’s how I do everything).

I’m off to Lincraft now to buy three buttons. After which purchase it really WILL be finished.

Goanna, you may admire the fitting sleeves, me old darlin !!

and also my bare feet.

Huge enormous closeup so that you can admire her patterning of 1 row of double crochet followed by 1 row of single crochet, so that all the dc stitches are facing the same way !

I seem to be absolutely unable to hit the happy medium of making a garment that fits me perfectly: almost all of the bastards are too small or too big. I have to refer back to those colourful boxy sweaters for total happiness. [grump grump ..]

SHUT UP M-R !!!!

But I do !

So here I am posting images – both absolutely vile !, I haven’t improved my photographic skills as you can deduce – of my latest finished article. Or, in craft terms, my latest FO.

Firstly, dis is me looking both amazed and cross-eyed. Fetchin, ain’t it ? [grin]

Now this one sees me looking superior, not to say haughty, while trying to both hold one hand out to show the sleeve AND operate the camera. This result was the first time I have ever managed to actually do this double act: usually I have to put my arm down so that I can press the stupid circle with the other hand. However, although I did manage it, I didn’t manage also to focus (or stop the phone from  moving). Sighh ..

And in fact neither of the shots shows the stitch I used – one that’s basic, but I’ve never seen a single garment made using it – called extended half double crochet, or ehdc for short. Hang on but – I sent an image to a lovely woman who has a yarn studio down in Portarlington (Yarn Me Calm):

There ! I sent this to Andrea so she could be impressed by the way I’d managed to marry up all the lines in the stitch when putting the pieces together.

See ? – when you get emailed by me, you never know what you’re going to be bombarded with !     😀

I made another cardi pattern from a YouTube channel belonging to a hugely talented crocheter called Sylvia whose projects are all subtle and delightful.

This is Sylvia’s finished product. Mine isn’t exactly .. ahh .. like it.

You see how she uses a gradient yarn ? – I didn’t have anything like it in my stash (which consists, as I have confessed to some other crochet people, of a pile of crocheted items  waiting to be frogged because either I never finished them or I finished them but don’t like them !) so I frogged a poncho made of a light self-striping acrylic.

Mine’s a tad less subtle, eh ?

Also, I didn’t want a waist with a cord, so I made it a little bit shorter. Now all I have to do is make two or three little cords for loose ties for the front and Robert will be my avuncular relative. I like the colourway.

But I’m not going to be doing anything in Granny stitch again ! – it made me feel like an assembly line operator, because it’s so quick and so fearfully repetitive.

Fiber Spider loves doing it, he says, and will actually look for patterns in Granny stitch. He must be a .. dammit, word’s gone.

Masochist. Yep.

This-morning I went to a shitload of trouble to take a photo of a cardigan I’d just finished crocheting so that I could use Imgur – called ‘image-posting software’ – to put a link to the photo in the Comments below the pattern on YouTube.

This, she said uncertainly, is it:

So it all worked: I put the link to the image into my comment and tested it, and there it was alright .. but some hours later I returned to Sarah’s entry in YouTube to see if she’d seen it and it had disappeared. The entire comment had gone.

The only person who could do that is the YouTube channel owner, yes ?

Looks like it’s so awful she was embarrassed by it because I’d also added a tag to give the credit to her for the design ..

Since this

is Sarah’s own version, made deliberately with ‘scrap’ yarn – i.e., left over from other projects – I’m thinking she feels my use of Lion Brand Mandala Ombre  is OTT ? Dunno. But it’s very puzzling ..

Today I came across a new-to-me crocheter – another American, as are so many, but one who has opened my eyes !

Her name is Doris. She has a YouTube channel, a husband and a pretty impressive craft setup. She also has a kind heart and a generosity of spirit that I’ve found rewarding, so far, at least three times:

1. how to stop my crochet fabric from gradually widening as it gets longer
2. how to use my swift gainfully, so that a skein doesn’t keep jamming the yarn-winder
3. how to design a cardigan or jumper that really, really, REALLY fits me.

Christ on a bicycle ! – all this from one small (5’4″, she tells us) woman !

As I have (1) skeins I haven’t wound into balls because I’m sick of the tangles I get myself into; (2) a half-made cardi I haven’t finished because I’m sick of the way the back at its top is about 5cm wider than it is at the bottom; and (3) a deep-seated yearning to just MAKE A CARDI MYSELF, regardless of yarn, weight, colour or anyone else’s directions regarding any of those .. why, I have to bless Doris and her Rose Cottage YouTube channel (not to mention again her big heart) !

This may all seem so, so boring to you lot who never pick up a crochet hook from dawn to dusk, 24/7, right ?

To me it’s a really important part of my pretty solitary life, my crocheting; so that my continued lack of FOs, coupled with my ever-improving ability to frog at speed and re-wind by hand, has needed some kind of injection of DIRECTION for longer than I can recall. Doris gives me that.

DORIS FOR EMPEROR !!!!!!!!!!

Take a look at this super pattern, willya ? It’s created by one of my most admired crochet designers – if not THE most admired.

https://doradoes.co.uk/2018/04/07/crochet-design-secrets/

She’s a genuine designer, too – you’ll find mostly garments, but also some fun stuff. Perhaps even more importantly, she has gradually provided a huge and comprehensive database (you might call it) of crochet help. Her .. what ? – mission statement, maybe, is upfront under the heading “Doralosophy”; and it’s well worth a read.

So what do I mean by my heading ..?

Simply this:

Why in the name of all the gods have I been farting around online looking for patterns to crochet that can be adjusted for size ??????

This delightful shrug was always there – has been there, I mean, since 2018 !!

And not only that, it’s BLUE DK YARN, of which I have a plethora – for the stripes I shall use something very different, but just as nice.   🙂

I’m a total klutz. Sighh ..

Gritted my teeth, girded my loins, took the plunge, and ..

That’s the left front – with slit for pocket – of this cardi:

I decided not to proceed with the original pattern, as that model is far, far removed from my body shape (which is changing, anyway). There are certain practicalities that do not hit me between the eyes, and that was one of ’em.

I have a battery of photos to post, because unless I do you will not understand how very blameworthy I am. And as a particularly horrible former brother-in-law was wont to say (frequently), “Blame must be allocated !”.

I have just today reached an impasse with my third project: I’ve run out of yarn for it, and for the second time ! Having written that, I shall start from now and work backwards ..

But first, an image of all three FAR from complete WIPs:

And this should give you the beginnings of comprehension of my guilt !

Right. The project I had to stop crocheting today is this one:

The image is not that supplied by the designer, but by an enthusiastic maker of her pattern. I like it because it was her very first crocheted garment !

And here’s where I had to leave mine:

No collar, no sleeves and no cuffs. Well, OF COURSE there aren’t any cuffs on account of there being no sleeves !!    [sighh ..]   I’ve ordered more yarn, and have zero idea of what Australia Post is doing with mail.

The middle project was another pattern by the same designer, although (and you’ll simply have to take my word for this) I had no idea when I abandoned this and took up the one above that such was the case ! She’s a clever woman, alright.

Here’s the pattern:

Yesyes, I’ve never been as large as that, but I figured it ought to give me enough around the arse. Unhappily, I was working to measurements I took of meself before I went on myWW; and now my (_|_) is some inches less around. As I cast on for the biggest size, it’s a turtle waste of time continuing; for it will turn into one of those huge heavy things that does nothing so much as weigh me down. So I’m going to have to frog everything I’ve crocheted so far, and the thought is extremely painful, to put it mildly ..

 And now to the oldest one – which is by far the silliest thing I’ve done in a long time.

I used this shrug’s pattern in the most basic way – simply casting on the number of stitches and starting to make a rectangle, in a stitch I’ve been dying to use ..

NOT this one, and not in this colourway !

 But.

I omitted to note that her measurement of the vertical was with the rectangle folded over !!! Which is to say, it should be twice as wide.

So I simply can’t decide which of no.s 2 or 3 I should frog first.

Or maybe I’ll just open a vein ..

I have finished another crocheted cardigan, and it fits me.

Yeahyeah, I know: I shouldn’t be carrying on about it .. But the trouble I’ve had making garments to fit myself would fill a book on its own !

This isn’t the yarn I originally used for the cardi – in fact it’s nothing like it. Believe it or not, I made this cardigan twice before: once in this same yarn and again in the yarn it was designed in. I completely frogged both ! – and was absolutely exhausted thereafter. The version in this yarn was far too big; whereas the version in the original yarn was so fucking heavy that I knew I’d never wear it. Ergo frogging.

Then I crocheted it all over again in this Mandala Ombre – an acrylic that’s a joy to work with (even if DMN doesn’t believe in acrylic yarns ! [grin] ) – but I dunno where that droop on the right snuck into the photo because I can’t see it now. Sighh ..

As for the Ice Yarns Ambiente (the pattern original), I’m currently making a poncho out of some of it, but I don’t like it’s total lack of ‘give’: it’s a shiny yarn that doesn’t stretch at all, so I think the poncho won’t be  big enough and this yarn will not be able to  be frogged again. Hey ho, another bit of rissoling.