Cat Mad Crochet

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

If you’ve read my posts about the movie Bright Star, you know I love the crochet in that movie. While everyone talks about that one sweater, there are others in the movie worth emulating. In fact, I like some of them better than that one sweater everyone adores. Despite that, I started making a sweater based on the sweater everyone raves about. The original was designed by Sophie Digard, as was all the crochet in that movie, and it really is exceptional. It does what so few crochet motif sweaters pull off in that it’s a bit tailored and that makes it scrumptious.

So how did Digard pull off the tailoring? The design is made of two shapes, squares and circles. The squares are the same size throughout. The circles, however, change size, as needed, to allow the sweater to curve and grow and shrink. Some circles are just the tiny center. Some have a slightly smaller second row. The largest are the same size as the squares. It’s ingenious, but it’s also a master class in manipulating crochet motifs. I had to try it.

I made about a thousand squares with padded centers done in the traditional way. I considered scraping that plan several times, but I started with padded centers, and I would finish with padded centers. I am stubborn that way. I finished all one thousand squares and set them aside, planning to return soon to the project. I didn’t. I don’t know why. There were other things to make, perhaps? It took a super long time and I wanted to work on something faster? I worried that I wasn’t talented enough to finish it well? Yeah, a lot of the last one. 

Eventually I picked it up again and made two cuffs. They aren’t bad, and I’m happy with how they were coming together. The colors work together, and the overall effect was of a tiny jewel box. I even wove the ends as I worked so I wouldn’t end up with a nearly finished project that I refused to weave several thousand ends in to finish. And then I stopped again. It’s a long project. It requires a lot of persistence. Given the world today, I’m running low.

Recently, I picked it up again. Hannah decided she wants a capelet and not a sweater. Okay. This is good. This is easier, so I can worry less about my lacking talent ruining the entire venture. Excellent. So I looked up some capelet schematics online and took some measurements of Hannah and decided we want the bottom circumference to be about 40 inches. This part of the measuring went well. 

The next part of the measuring involved me measuring the squares and the largest circles and extrapolating out how many I would need to reach 40 inches. I got 27. It was a lie. I attached 27 motifs together, and it only took most of watching Wicked to accomplish. I was happy! It looked short, but what do I know of size? I grabbed my tape measure and gleefully held it up to the little row of motifs only to find I was very short of my goal. Woefully short. 

I took more measurements, which apparently are meaningless because my measurement skills are nil, and got out fifteen more motifs to, fingers crossed, reach 40 inches circumference. I am a mess. Please do not perceive me as I sit in my measurement shame. Math is hard. 

Anyway, I am now making the number of centers I think I will need to finish the capelet. I think it will be 14 rows of motifs long with 43 or motifs in each row. I multiplied those together and divided by two for the number of circles I will need. And yes, I did remember to subtract the ones I already made. We shall see. I’m going to have a pile of padded centers, and that will be sufficient for my psychological well-being regardless of whether or not there are enough of them to finish the project. I can make more. Whatever. It’s fine. Fuck math.

So that’s the update on this project. I poke at it every day. If I keep making little padded centers everyday (at the rate of 12 in each color I picked out) then I will have enough to start adding the second row to each one and start sewing the project together very soon. If all goes well, and I have no reason to believe anything is going well anymore, I should have it finished by the end of the year. Or next year. Or the year after that. It will be finished before I die, I swear.