So after finishing my nice vanilla socks, I decided that I wanted to stretch my legs a bit, metaphorically speaking. I posted a while ago about this sweater (shirt? top? Not sure what to call it).
It’s the Calad Shirt by Jenny Tsung and I just think it’s super cute. Is it something that I’ll wear? Maybe. Have I ever actually, successfully crocheted a garment for myself? No. Do I find crochet patterns above “beginner” basically unreadable? Yes.
Is any of that going to stop me? Absolutely not.
Certainly nothing will go wrong.
Anyway, I dug into my stash and found a couple balls of lace-weight yarn that, honestly, I’m probably never going to use. (I had a big “lace” phase maybe 10 years back, but I don’t have the time or attention to make fancy lace shawls anymore. Maybe when the kids go off to college.) I pulled out a surprisingly tiny crochet hook and went ahead and got swatching. And man, I’m glad I did.
Here’s the swatch. Can you spot what went wrong?
That’s right. It’s supposed to be a rectangle. Not a trapezoid.
I honestly don’t know what I did. I definitely lost stitches somewhere along the line, but where? No idea. And maybe my tension changed, too? Who knows. I’m just glad I didn’t jump right in on the sweater before I got my sea legs. It’s definitely going to take a couple tries to get this pattern figured out. Cross your fingers for me!
Have you ever messed up a swatch as badly as mine?
On the Needles 
Yep, absolutely! The first time I crocheted my swatch started out looking like a fishing net, by the other side was resembling a crochet pattern. Losing stitches at the start or end is most common for me in crochet but even putting that aside, my tension was super duper loose to start and got tight really fast as I got into my stride!
Even with that said I managed to turn far too early at one point and cut a whole big corner out of the blanket as I was making it. Didn’t notice for rows and rows. This is all how we learn, right?
I can’t figure out crochet. Good luck getting into the groove.