Hopefully you’ve heard of the Back To School Sweater CAL by now. If you haven’t then you’ve still got a month before the Crochet-A-Long ends. It is the perfect excuse to try something you’ve never done before. I had never made myself a crochet jumper before. Now I have made two! And it’s partly due to this fabulous sweater party that has been devised by Tamara from Crafty Escapism and Helen from Making at Number 14, not to mention shouted from the roof tops by awesome Fay of the Crochet Circle podcast. Go on, click on their names. They will take you to a hive of information and lead you down a rabbit hole of jumpery goodness. There are loads of specially written blog posts by some truly knowledgeable people.
I’ve stopped caring about showing my mad face to the world. It doesn’t really matter does it? I expect you’re looking the the jumper/sweater anyway. And you have probably noticed that both my jumpers are the same pattern. It’s the Cleckheaton Colour Block Jumper and I have mentioned it several time now, mostly over on my YouTube channel (episodes 13-16), where I’ve shared the details of yarn (it’s Drops Lima, which I’ve learned is deffo handwash only) and other super informative stuff .
You can find the pattern for free on Ravelry along with many others that, are in a useful bundle put together by the CAL team. Look here, aren’t there so many you could make?!
Yes, my seaming is a bit dodgy but I’m saying it’s part of the look. And you can always turn it inside out, where it blends in more. And if I’m not mistaken, I appear to have walked past many (far more than usual) doors/walls/strange places that all have nails (or other protruding things) poking out, waiting to grab hold and snag at my granny clusters. It’s a handmade jumper’s worst nightmare (that, and the shrinking/felting thing that I achieved on the first wash).
As it’s a CAL, there are prizes to be won if you enter your project into the Ravelry threads. I have offered one of my patterns as a prize. I don’t know if it’ll be a bundle of prizes for just a couple of winners or if they’ll be many prizes for different categories. Here is the Chatter thread so you can see what everyone is getting up to. And here is the Finished Object thread. I admit that I’m not very good at chatter threads. I easily forget to check in but I do enjoy seeing other crafter’s takes on projects. Simply by joining in on the threads (and by using the Instagram hashtag #BackToSchoolSweaterCAL) means you’re eligible to be entered into the prize giveaways.
Again, sorry about the face. This photo really shows the jumper off though so I’m over looking the crazy stare (it’s not as if people cross the street when I walk by or anything).
Have you already made crochet garments before? Is it something you enjoy? I loved making mine and will definitely make more crochet clothes for myself in the future. And please shout out if you are already taking part. Or maybe you’ve had a spark of inspiration and now feel the pull of the CAL?! Let me know! Cheers.
It’s about time, it’s sweater weatha… x