Crochet coat - work in progress

For my first project post, here is the big project I'm working on now. Visit my flickr page for larger images.

First, the wool. More specifically, 51% wool, 49% acrylic. It has a nice feel, even with the sparkly bit. The downside is that it's hand wash only. I found this on clearance at Walmart at $1.25 a ball. They normally sell for something like $5 a ball. There was a wide variety of this brand on clearance. This is completely different from anything I've used before and I had no idea what I'd do with it, but I picked up 10 balls anyways. My elder daughter was enchanted with it and after weeks of looking at the stack, trying to figure out what we could make with it, she aske me to make a coat for her. We ended up going back for more yarn, and I ended up with 27 balls of this, because I've become obsessive about not running out of yarn in the middle of a project.

I've never made a coat in crochet before. In fact, I've hardly made anything in crochet before this year. I'd taught myself to crochet years ago, but stopped doing it for years before picking up a hook again this year. So the next few weeks were spent looking at different patterns. Most were in styles my daughter didn't really like, or used plain yarns, relying on stitches for textural interest, something that just wouldn't work with type of yarn.

If you look at the loose yarn on the bottom, you can see that it changes from thick to thin. It's also not twisted tightly at all. With this in mind, I wanted to find some sort of pattern that was very plain and simple. Mostly, I needed to find something with arm, shoulder and neck shaping instructions, as this was the area I wasn't sure of.

In the end, we settled on a very plain cardigan pattern. I found it in Plus Size Crochet, I think the title was.

The pattern sizes in the book starts at 1X, but because this is meant to be a coat instead of a cardigan, I went with the 2X sizing. My daughter also wanted it to be long enough to cover her butt when she sits down, so it's a lot longer than the pattern. She also wants a collar added to it. I haven't quite figured out how to do that, yet. Because of the length, I'll also be adding a 6th button to the design.



This is the neck and shoulder detail of the back panel, which is finished. The pattern is very simple - alternating sc (single crochet) and dc (double crochet) rows, using a size I/9 5.5omm hook.












This is the left front panel. I've got stitch markers on every 10th row of dc. I'll be doing a total of 45 rows of dc before I start shaping the armholes.

I'm hoping to get this finished so that my daughter can wear it before it gets too cold.