Eet’s a sweater!

Do any of you quote movie lines with your significant others? For me, I think I can trace it back to my college roommates and “What About Bob?” (still my favorite movie). Then I married a man who loves movies. I had to start watching all his old ’80s comedies just to know what the heck he was talking about. We’ve got our go-to favorites and have discovered that, between “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” and “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” we could probably never have an original conversation again; they’ve got quotes for everything! Another one we like is “Three Amigos” which provided the title of today’s post. It’s great for any gift-giving situation.

Today is not a gift-giving situation, but it does involve an actual sweater! Just in time for the warmest day of the year so far. Woo hoo, timing! To my credit, it was cold three weeks ago when I started this. The pattern was (mostly) the “flirty ruffles top” from the January 2009 issue of Crochet! Magazine. I used Caron Simply Soft in Pagoda. I like the sheen, but it does look like it might have a tendency to pill, so I’m going to have to be careful with the sweater.

Now, you may notice that there aren’t any ruffles on this so-called ruffles top. On the original pattern, the front hemline came up to a point just below the bust and it was this edge that was lined with ruffles. I didn’t like the way it came up like that because that would force me to have to wear something underneath to cover up all that midriff. Truth be told, I’ll probably end up wearing a camisole under it anyways because there’s nothing worse in life (to me) than being cold. But I’d like to at least maintain the option of having just a sweater on its own. Besides that, I thought that cut-out part looked stupid.

I have a waist!

In order to keep it from being just a big crocheted rectangle, I did a little bit of shaping through the waist by changing hook size. The majority of the sweater is worked with an I hook. I worked a panel through the middle on both the front and the back where I went down to H for about 5 rows and then to G, back up to H and then back to I. I can definitely feel a difference in wearing it. Along the bottom hem, I just made a simple 5 dc fan around.

I’ll be the first to admit that, without the ruffly inverted V, this is a pretty basic sweater. And you know what? I’m ok with that. Until now, all I had was one extremely basic gray J. Crew sweater that I bought at the thrift store with the intention of felting down to make something else (can’t even remember what that was). Eventually I got cold and just started wearing it. Another warm addition to my wardrobe was a must, hence this basic teal sweater. Teal is prettier than gray, anyways. Obviously this make isn’t going to see a lot of wear until the fall, but at least I’ll be ready.

With that done, it’s time to start busting my fabric stash for more season-appropriate garments. Should be some good stuff coming up soon in that department! Not to mention my new pajamas for the sew-along are due on Saturday. “Sew, (not so) very old one! Sew like the wind!” (How’s that for a great quote! Anybody else got some good ones? Bonus points if they’re craft-related).