Cat Mad Crochet

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes

Confession time. I have not watched most of Only Murders in the Building. Oh, it’s been on, and I have occasionally looked at the screen, but it was on as background noise while I crocheted. I have actually watched the fourth season as I exercised. Much to my pleasant surprise, I caught this little gem.

Mabel wears this sweater in the last scene of the last episode of the fourth season. We never get a view better than this one, and this photo is made worse by my television. I think this is crochet. Specifically, I think this is done with something like the Marguerite stitch. The stitch pattern looks quite like my own Marguerite stitch sweater, though they have done a much better job with fit than I did. In my defense, it was an early sweater attempt on my part. 

This is one of the only photos I have of this sweater. It has many problems. I increased too much in the round yoke. I blocked it until it was almost dry and then, like an idiot, left the sleeves to dangle. The sleeves, seeing their chance for evil, took that opportunity to stretch out to ridiculous lengths. Don’t be me. Increase with care and block flat. Also, if you saw the whole sweater, you would see that the yarn, despite being from the same dye lot, did not match nicely. I should have alternated rows with all of the balls of yarn to minimize the color differences. I did not. Hopefully, I will take these lessons forward and learn from them. Time will tell. 

In both sweaters, we see the clear delineation of rows that creates a neat, linear texture. This is because Marguerite stitch is formed from a row of single crochets (which read flat) worked between rows of half-double crochet star stitches (which read puffy). If you want to try this stitch pattern yourself, you can handle all of the increases in the single crochet rows. You just need to remember that you are doing the increase for both the single crochet row (6 increases) and the half-double crochet row (9 increases) at the same time, so aim for about 15 increase points in the single crochet row, and then you can just work the half-double crochet star row as usual because the increases are already worked out. 

I’ve started looking at the costume designers for films and shows in which crochet shows up. Dana Covarrubias is the costume designer for Only Murders in the Building, at least in this season. I’ll look into her and see if there are others shows I should watch. But this leaves me with another question: Does using crochet in costuming in contemporary shows demonstrate a costume designer’s knowledge of crochet or does it just demonstrate the ease with which one can obtain a crocheted piece these days? Crochet is more popular now, probably because you can find it in stores, so a costume designer could, conceivably, go to a store, find a crocheted piece, and never have to think too deeply about it. I think perhaps the shows produced before crochet became popular that used crochet in wardrobe pieces would demonstrate that the costume designer has a better grasp of crochet and how it can be used to add character development through wardrobe. They would have had to work for the piece by either finding it in a thrift store or having it custom created for the show. I could be wrong. I’m just a woman with a hook and a lot of viewing time while I exercise. (And two degrees in art history, but that knowledge has been dormant for a long time.)

Anyway, if you have a show to suggest, drop a comment, and I’ll give it a watch while I exercise! Happy crafting!