Granny sweater

I managed to finish the improvised granny sweater before school started. Yay! I had that goal set up for myself, secretly, this week. School starts tomorrow, so it was a close one. I made the last rounds on the last sleeve sitting in our garden, annoying my reading husband with crochet talk all the time. ;)

I also managed to persuade Elsa to try it on one more time to take a few pictures. She loves to get her picture taken, but she was tired of me wanting her to try this on too many times. Probably the worst part of improvising... 

Well, two snaps before she ran off...! But not too far away luckily. :) I think the shaping turned out alright, since I used a very simple design. I was surprised though, that it was so tight on her. When I had made the first rounds of granny squares, it seemed huge around her waist. But I think it's rather flexible, and I hope she will be able to use it for a long time.

 The design is simple, as I said. Round after round of granny squares, all joined as I went. No sewing if I don't have too, thank you! When I realized I was running out of yarn, I switched to granny stripes. Color changes on the front...

... and green on the back. Thought it could calm it down a bit. Had to play around a lot with the colors to make the yarn last, and the simple back cools it down a bit.

Granny stripes on the sleeves too, alternating in red and pink as I was almost out of green. I had just enough to make two rounds of sc in the end.The length of the sleeves was simply based on the amount of yarn that remained, making them as long as I could. The ending four rounds of sc are made in the three dc's in the granny stripe, skipping the ch between the dc groups. To narrow it down a little.

The upper three photos are taken with my camera, and I was amazed at how true it was to the green color. I had noticed that it had a tendency to look grey on earlier pictures taken with my mobile. But I did take few pictures with my mobile too, and was surprised when I compared them. Look at the one above and the one below, see the difference? The camera pictures are much softer and true to the green while the red is hard to catch. And on the mobile pictures the red looks really sharp, and you can see just how crisp the yarn looks in reality, although the green is to pale. It actually made it hard to choose what pictures to use!

 I decided to leave some extra space for the head, splitting the front a bit before the shoulders. I made the split a little wider by leaving three dc's between the two shoulder parts. Some of that gap was filled when I made two rounds of sc around the entire neck line, but I wanted to make sure her head would get through. My kids (and their parents) are blessed with rather big heads... To keep the collar in place, I made braids to weigh them down. The shoulders were crocheted together, everything straight and square.

I thought the bottom would look nice with an edging of some kind, and found this in a book. I think it looks great with the granny squares and stripes.

As usual  I got a little optimistic about how far the yarn would take me, which makes me use it up a little too soon... That's how some of my color design emerges - out of necessity! :) This is all that remained when it was all done... I used nine balls in all, and since it was a really cheap yarn, this sweater cost me nearly nothing. I love that fact! (But I don't like how the yarn kept splitting, not perfect for crochet!)

Well, I'm happy and the girl is happy. She wants to wear it on the first day in school tomorrow. That warms a mother's heart! :)