Little Cotton Shrug

Little Cotton Shrug, a photo by happy.eclair on Flickr.

Thanks to Mimi Alelis, I now have my first crocheted piece of clothing. I’ve been wondering what to wear this summer because there are insanely hot days especially when commuting. So here it is, my finished shrug. The pattern isn’t so hard to follow, considering I am not an expert at crochet. It primarily uses single crochet and double crochet.

The amusing thing here is that with a 4/0 sized hook, my gauge is double than what’s on the pattern so I tried making the sleeve part already based on the small sized directions and it worked just fine. I had a problem with the shoulders though so I was fitting the shrug as I went along. As for the edging, that’s another tricky part. I am not sure if I will totally redo this part one of these days or make another one from scratch. Why? I find the edging a bit loose but the thing is that I need a stretchy enough edging to wear this. I am also not that familiar with how shrugs should really fit me. Ah well. I am hoping to make a cropped cardigan with this pattern as basis. Unless I find another pattern. It might look like it’s knitted but it’s not ;) It took me a week, more or less because of the edging issue I had.

All in all, I found cotton to be a good kind of material to work with and the resulting shrug is lightweight. Perfect for summer.

Things I learned:
1. If you're bigger, maybe you could adjust the pattern/adapt the pattern using a different gauge. In this project's case, the gauge I had was double. Aside from being able to use the 'small' sized instructions, the shrug looks more lacy which makes it cute and summer-y.
2. Edging is not always easy to make/decide on. Because I used a bigger gauge, I couldn't directly use the recommended edging. Also, I needed a stretchier edging that would let me wear the shrug.
3. Cotton thread is not scary to work with. I actually enjoyed working with cotton thread. Even if it was Monaco that I used, I think that having a bigger gauge also made the resulting garment have a softness to it. :D
4. There are really great patterns out there which might look overwhelming but if you really want to make them, you could if you are very determined. Being used to making hats, I mainly work with sportweight or worsted weight yarn. Everything with thread looks overwhelming. Maybe I just really needed this project to overcome my fears.

I am looking forward to the crochet along by Interweave using the Moth Wings Shrug pattern by Mimi Alelis. Maybe I will have fun the way I did with this one.

By the way, her patterns are available as print outs from VC Trading in Farmers Plaza Cubao and other crafting stores. They're sold for 70-100 pesos each. Or you could buy them online via Ravelry.

Via Flickr:
Posted via email from eclair on posterous