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Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!! I chose the start date of the Ever-Change Sweater MAL so we would reach the easiest and relaxing part at the crazy time of Christmas/holiday season …and here we are at the Lower Bodice. In between family feasts and group gatherings you can grab a few moments for yourself of “zen” crocheting - because the “smooth sailing” part begins now. (Yay!!)
If you have the time it’s possible to smash through the Lower Bodice and Hemline Ribbing in just a few days and since the next blog will be in 2 weeks there is potentially a bit of catch-up time for those not so far along. Due to work commitments and getting ready for Christmas with my family I, for one, am a little behind on my latest Ever-Change project as you can see here!
If you are joining us now that’s fine too - grab the Ever-Change Sweater pattern from either Ravelry or Etsy, join my Facebook group Pepper-Gaggle and welcome aboard! After the first hurdle of swatching and mastering those first few rows, new sweaters are popping up in Pepper-Gaggle with comments about how meditative it can be to work in canvas stitch which makes up the main fabric of this sweater!
All the essential instructions and video links are in the pattern documents, the MAL blogs are offered to provide some extra tips, and Pepper-Gaggle is where you can source specific help/advice and share your project!
Quick recap on previous blog links:
The Pattern Launch Blog with details about the Ever-Change Sweater, the MAL and photos of finished tester samples can be found here.
The Prep Blog with details about how to choose size, check for adjustments to finalise required yardage and swatch to achieve gauge can be found here.
Week 1 Blog (Fdc to V-point tips) is here.
Week 2 Blog (V-point to U/arm rounds) is here.
Please note that my blog is written using UK crochet terminology.
The End Goal these 2 weeks for the Ever-Change Sweater :
…is to complete Lower Bodice and Hemline Ribbing.
By the time you have completed the U/arm fdc bridge and corrected any fit issues the Lower Bodice is simply working in a tube of closed rounds (and a final fit check after Round 14). Unless you are working in a solid colour of Scheepjes Whirlette or Woolly Whirlette, you manage the desired colour gradient down the body by juggling yarn A cakes or cutting fuzz-buzzes of the Scheepjes Whirl/Woolly Whirl from the U/arm all the way to the end of the Hemline Ribbing. (Appendix A covers this, as does the Colour Planning video).
The ribbing join is the only new technique we use this week, so this is a short blog. You will be back to sipping eggnog or wrapping presents in a flash!
So, to bonus tips…. 1. The join to close rounds of canvas stitch is almost invisible and runs down the left side Bodice slightly to the front . If you don’t want it to be there, you could cut the yarn and re-join at the centre side (or other desired location) but it will disrupt the instructions/potentially make it a bit harder to see where to insert the hook when working in canvas stitch across that U/arm bridge when adding the Lower Sleeves later on.
2. Adding Length is easy and, as we talked about when planning out projects before buying yarn, guidance for how much yarn you will need for added canvas stitch rounds is on pages 3 and 33 of the Pattern PDF.
Maybe you didn’t look at this at the beginning of the project though or thought the length would be fine but now decide it isn’t. You can weigh your remaining/available Lower Bodice yarn and subtract the amount you will need for the Hemline Rib (see top of Pattern page 34) to figure out how much length you can add.
If that’s not enough and you think you might also need to access some Sleeve left-over yarn to achieve your desired length, then the table on page 4 of Appendix A can come in handy to give you a better overview and think about how the colours will play out before you commit to a plan of attack.
3. Ribbing tip. Ribbing is meant to be springy, and firm (but not super tight) stitches are ideal for this. I tend to err on the side of slightly higher tension in my yarn feed hand compared to as working the canvas stitch. I like the small amount the ribbing pulls in with the same stitch count, but if you want the sweater to kind of look tucked in and sit higher around the waist then including the optional decreases in Round 2 of the Hemline Ribbing can achieve this. (The pink sample below is without decreases and suits my pear shape.)
4. The join I use to close rounds of post treble ribbing (Hemline Ribbing Round 3 onwards) is also almost invisible by creating a double-sided rib effect. For those who have printed out the pattern, be sure to go back to your PDF to access the link to the video demonstration of this join!
If in any doubt after watching the video and giving it a go, work the first part of the last stitch of the round around the lowest part of the appropriate post (it can be a little bit hard to see) to continue the line of rib-texture. I use this join method for all ribbing in the round and being double sided it’s super-great for adding top-down to beanies as you can fold it back and it still looks like ribbing from the WS too.
...And that’s it for Weeks 3 & 4!
Share your Ever-Change Sweater on socials with the tags #everchangesweater and #everchangesweaterMAL.
I sincerely hope you are loving your Ever-Change Sweater project and wish you a safe and happy holiday season as 2021 wraps up …hopefully enjoying good food and laughter with family and friends!
Happy New Year! Here’s to a positive 2022!
Susan (Peppergoose)
#peppergoosedesign #peppergoosehandmade #everchangesweater #everchangesweaterMAL #scheepjes #whirl #woollywhirl#crochetvneck
Thank you to Scheepjes for contributing some of the yarn that I used in developing my first prototype of this design.
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