Making a Free Form Crocheted Sweater

In January I took a class in free-form crochet. I spent the next six weeks playing with the concept. I found it is not easy, especially if you want to end up with something that is formed into a certain shape. I started making a ruana, a poncho-style garment, but it morphed into a long cape and  finally settled into a short a kimono style sweater.

My Process

I started making long crocheted shapes of large and small circles and half circles and odd-shapes. Not being a crocheter (except for finishing edges on knitted pieces) I had to learn the stitches I wanted to use. But I had no worries about breaking the rules, since I didn’t know the rules. I crocheted loosely and in a wild fashion with no problem.

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I made a  variety of crocheted pieces in coordinating colors. One piece draped nicely around the dress to form a  neckline.

Using a dress form (as suggested by our instructor, Sandra Vanburkleo, owner of Artisan Knitworks) I pinned sections together. Yes, I did make an investment in pins. I recommend small, medium and large pins to adjust the spacing.

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I pinned and repined many times to get the shape and color I wanted.

  Crocheting directly on the dress form I reinforced the neck-piece and created a collar. Eventually the piece was stable enough to crochet in my lap.

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Sometimes it was best to lay out the piece on a table for pinning.

When I had a garment, I tried it on, pins and all, to photograph. This is a great technique to see a piece from a different perspective. I could see my garment was hanging well in some areas and bunching up in others. Yarn need to be removed while other areas needed reinforcing. I became creative in removing yarn (sometimes with scissors, which is flirting with disaster). I crocheted pieces to fit into the holes and added yarn to fill out the edges.

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The longer I made my garment, the more it pulled on the neckline. I reinforced it by adding more lines of support and crocheting over any thin lines. This is when knowing the rules of shaping and reinforcing in crochet would have helped. I just worked the problems keeping the design pleasing to my eye.

With reinforcement I extended the length of the garment. But as I studied this photograph, I decided it was too becoming too cumbersome losing the delicate flow I liked. I began removing yarn – another reason this was a six-week process!

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I shaped the garment into a cape.

But it still wasn’t right. Capes move around as you wear it and can be quite annoying. This piece called for sleeves.

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I turned two side of the cape together to make one piece of fabric for each sleeve, but it didn’t look right. Instead I extended the length of each side, and formed the sleeves with a simple crochet stitch.

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I crocheted the remaining pieces together, adding layers of yarn for reinforcement, interest, and color.

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Finished - except for a few hundred loose ends! Each was carefully woven into the garment with a tapestry needle and secured.

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I 'm pleased with how my sweater turned out. It was fun learning free-form crochet and look forward to working with this technique again.