Okay, so here it is! The top on the intended wearer. :-) This is my friend Maxine... and now that I see this on her there are lots of notes that I have to make for the next time I make a custom top. :-) :-) To begin with, the sleeves are way too long. They may work just fine on a super model - because they're all like 11 feet tall, but on us shorter ladies, we need much smaller sleeves to give it that 't-shirt' type of feel. :-)

The next note I'm making is the v-neck cut. I used a design software that used these dimensions for the cut and even though I was not totally sure of it on paper, I went ahead with it since I was totally doubting myself anyway. Now I know that I should have followed my instinct and made it much higher - by the looks if it, a good 6 inches higher! :-) :-)

The last note on this... give it to someone else to crochet. I'm afraid that this is my final adult size garment that I'll be able to make. As much as I enjoyed making it, my hands were in just too much pain to work on it as much as I wanted. Since I wanted to make this and send it to Maxine so much, I forced myself to work with the pain - and my gauge loosened up too much. So, the front (when I was in the most pain) drapes lower than the back, and it also ended up being a bit wider. Not my best work, I should have just calculated, wrote and giving it to someone with good hands to make. I can still work on the smaller projects which makes this difficult situation much more bearable and less depressing. I don't have to give up crocheting or knitting all together so I'm still happy. :-) :-) I have plenty of friends that would be willing to give me a hand for those larger projects so I'm not too worried. :-)

So, on that note, I better go rest the hands for a bit before picking up the crochet hooks again. I'm working on a sweater pattern for a crochet-along that I've been asked to host and I'm totally excited. I'm making a small version of the sweater so I can hammer out the pattern details then will ask for one of my dear friends to help with the crocheting. :-) I don't want to get into too much detail or show any pics - even though I'm just dying to - but there are quite a few super talented crocheters out there that can take one looks at my little design and crank out a pattern and garment in a week. I know that the competition is fierce out there, but I can't go any faster than this so I can only hope that nothing like my little sweater turns out somewhere else in a few weeks. :-)

Take care,
Pinka

All Done!

I finally finished!!! And here it is - all done. Now the person that this is going to has more shoulder than I do so it should fit her a lot better. But I have to tell you that I love the way this top feels!!! I didn't really want to take it off. I'll have to eventually make myself a top out of Bamboo one of these days. :-)

I have a few other pictures... the front completed, the back completed and the sleeves. I also took pics of the assembly process... you can actually see that I pinned the pieces before crocheting them together! :-)

I'm not sure if you can see the pins, but I pinned the front and back together first, then crocheted them together. I then took each sleeve and pinned them in place making sure that one didn't hang differently from the other. It took a bit more patience, but I didn't have to rip anything out afterwards. :-)

I was a little dissapointed with myself because I really pushed myself to get this done - and pushed myself beyond my limiatations. I should have taken an extra week of two and not tortured my arm but instead I ended up with a fron that had a bit of a wider gauge than I had anticipated. So I had an extra 4 inches on the front. I just hope that the person that I'm giving this to can find those little clip thingies that can be clipped to the back to reduce the width those few inches. I have to say though, that the looser gauge felt even better than my original gauge. :-) I may have to do the loosy goosy gauge for my own top if and when I get around to it. :-)

I'm off to take more pics of some of my other projects... including some natural dyeing from I class I took last weekend! :-)

Take care,

Pinka