Crochet Wrap/Shrug Thing

I have not sewn anything in sooooooo long.

I got rather caught up in an unexpected project.

Here is the end result:

From Wrap it up

This is a crocheted "shrug", "wrap", whatever you want to call it. The idea for it came from the "two-minute instant shrug" article in volume 1 of SewStylish, and is intended to replace my fugly grey office sweater.



Using their directions, and lengthening a little bit, I came up with this muslin.



I wasn't crazy about the muslin fabric, so I went hunting for something else I would like. I had a hard time finding anything that spoke to me, so I ended up crocheting my own fabric. I'm still not 100% statisfied with the results, but the wrap/shrug is cosy and wearable.

Here's how I made it (I'm not a professional crochet designer, nor practitioner, so take these for what they are):

Row 1. Chain 35.
Row 2. Skip 1st ch, sc in next 34.
Row 3. ch 1, turn, sc in 34 sc through the front loop.
Row 4. ch 1, turn, 2 sc in 1st sc, sc in all but the last sc, 2 sc in last sc, all through the back loop
Rows 5 through 30, repeat row 4, alternating front and back loops so that you always pick up the loop on the same side. This will form little ridges across the work all on the wrong side.
Rows 31 through 53 - sc in all sc.
Rows 54 through 80 - decrease in the first and last sc and sc in the remaining sc.

Finish off.

This will give you a piece of fabric that looks roughly like this:



Fold the piece of fabric in half and crochet or whip stitch along the angles to form the sleeves.

As you can see from the pictures, I did a little extra. I can't explain that part formally though. I made a few spirals with a big glass bead in the middle. I worked those in to the middle rows (the ones that were all the same size) by attaching them at the bottom during one pass, then going around the top and back down during the next pass, then filling in on one side of them, then filling in the other.

One more thing. I didn't actually turn the work as I went. I'm left handed and can crochet left and right handed. So I always kept the right side of the work facing me and switched hands as I went back and forth. This also means that I didn't alternate the front and back loops as the instructions indicated. I always worked the front loops so that the ridge would go to the back.

I'm not even going to get into how I ended up going down this path. It's a long, long saga. Part of it included experimenting with different crochet and knit stitches while on vacation - done because I couldn't drag my sewing machine with me.

I'm glad to be done with this thing so I can get back to my sewing.

Three aspects of life meet...

I am always fascinated by the odd little coincidences of life.

Before I began sewing, I had never heard of "bespoke" clothing. I gathered from my reading that it was custom tailoring, and didn't really think anymore about it.

Then this morning, while reading through one of my geek newsgroup posts (having to do with the Eclipse Process Framework Project for anyone who might be remotely interested), I came across the term "bespoke proccesses". Here's the full quote:

This tailoring of the available process body of knowledge will result in bespoke
processes suitable for a specific project execution environment.

Hmmm... now we've used both "tailoring" and "bespoke" in reference to software development processes - something of a distance from sewing.

So, onto to wikipedia, where we find that "bespoke" clothing is customized made-to-order clothing, and "bespoke" software is customized, made-to-order software. Interesting.

Interesting to find another little tie between my "day job" and sewing.

Interesting that "bespoke" is not more widely used in other areas. Clothing, software, and automobile manufacturing are pretty much it.

Interesting that the reason I've not heard the term "bespoke software" before, for all that I've been in the software industry for 15+ years, is that it's not really used much in the US.

And "bespoke" is just an interesting little word all by itself. It's right up there with "piffle".

So there you have it, three aspects of my life; sewing, computers, and interesting words - all tied up together in one neat little package.

OK OK, I fully admit it. I'm sometimes fascinated and amused by both the minute and odd. :-)