(This project used to be an UGH. Now it’s my big bump sweater! After I give birth -if I ever have any spare time at all, that is-, I’ll cut off the sleeves and unpick or cut some stripes down the sides, and hopefully that will sort out the oversizing situation. At the moment, it turns out to be just the thing, the most sumptuous and luxurious pregnancy sweater ever! Pictures soon, I hope.)

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This was my 2009 birthday present: enough dough to buy the yarn for this mammouth project… and the magazine it came in. I have mixed feelings for it. Let me elaborate:

Before anything else, the colour combination is so unusual and striking I’m still not sure if I like it! I did have to substitute old bronze for straw, but even so, I spent days looking at the colours and loving them one day and thinking ‘they’re wrong’ on the next. Perhaps I would do some substitutions now, leading everything a bit more into the purple perhaps, but I would struggle to drop the Mallard (bright blue) which is just stunning.

This is about the design.

As for the pattern itself.

ONE: First of all, the sizes. These Rowan geniuses have started a sizing guide that goes something like “to fit 92-97 bust, next size to fit 102-105 bust”. I’m a 98 or 99, and really concerned about not fitting into a crocheted (i.e., no give, no stretch) sweater costing a little fortune.

My real complaint is about the lack of appropriate sizing on the schematics. This thing is done in pieces, and you only get overall width for the hem and overall height. You have no idea what the bust is going to come up like, which didn’t help decide the size I was to crochet.

They do give you an “S, M, L, XL guide, but in “normal” clothes shop, although it waried wildly, I tend to be an L. So I made an L, and an L-ephant I got (excuse the very, very poor pun). Bless Rowan, I should be thanking them for making me an M! Anyway, because I have hips wider than my bust, and big shoulders, I chose the size that more or less fitted my hips. And oh dear, what I got is a camping tent!

MAY I SUGGEST (what I’d probably do now): The central pannel is the same for all sizes, if I remember it well, and this measures about 21 cms, at least in my case. Then there is the side stripe sequence, which gives you 17 more cms at the waist on each side from pannel to seam (for size L anyway), plus 1.5 cms on the bust and 4.5 at the hips approximately (totalling plus 6 or 7 cms at bust and 18 at hips by comparisson with finished, in the round waist size.)

Perhaps the thing to do is, bearing in mind the short rows for the shaping, customise the striping. That is: Measure your bust, divide this by two (back and front), and divide this measurement again in two (stripe sequence on each side of the pannel) and just crochet the aforementioned stripe sequence until you achieve that bust size, no ease or even one or two stripes less, if you want it with little ease at the bust , and then work the shaping as given in the pattern, which will give you a bit of ease at the bust and quite a lot at the hips. Or something of the sort.

This should retain the shape of the design, the Renaissance-ish silhouette, but eliminate the guesswork in the sizing, and give you a more fitted result, which I think it’s a good idea, at least for pears and hourglasses. OR customise the shaping according to your own body shape, by working the short-rows differently (same at bust and hips, more or less short-rows…) or not at all. Simples!

TWO: As I said, this is done in pieces. Even the vertical stripes on the sides stop at the shoulders to be sewn later, which is ridiculous. It’s a considerably difficult seam and not neat at all. I thought there was some point to it that these genius pattern-makers had seen that I couldn’t, but there isn’t. It’s just the Rowan obsession for doing everything in pieces, lest some knitting or crochething brontosaur criticised them for designing something with a novel approach to the craft. Do it in one piece is my advice. I did it in the second shoulder and it worked just right.

THREE and serious advice: when they instruct increases at the sleeves, ignore it!! The sleeves are very wide at the hem as they are. Increase at the top and you’ll get room enough to put a kitchen in (that’s what happens when it’s not the designer itself who writes the pattern. Rowan, evolve!)

Making of “The Donatello”: The central pannel and sleeves pattern is crocheted quite tightly. Be prepared for some cramps! This makes for slow progress.

The stripes make for neverending end weaving. Try to avoid some of it wraping the ends in the new stitches whenever possible.

Finally, Kidsilk Aura is practically impossible to frog, and it knows it, and it doesn’t like those who dare to try. Concentrate in not making many mistakes. They are a pain to amend.

Fortunately, since there are no increases at the front pannel, (and should be none at the sleeves if you know what’s good for you), possibility for mistakes reduces quite a lot. The stitch pattern is not difficult, and the sides are simple stripes in dc, sc and sl st. I used some hdc for transition in some decreases. But it’s only stripes, and if you’re doing this project you master dc stripes, right?

Easy stitching, then. HOWEVER, it’s not an effortless or easy project at all. It’s big, it’s stripey, the gauge is tight, and it’s made complicated by the instructions, the unfroggable yarn and, in my case, the sizing.

In conclusion: I should have done the medium size, I should NOT have increased at the top of the sleeves, and I should have done the vertical side pannels in one piece. As it is now, I’m going to have to take it in to be able to wear it without looking like a stripey circus tent, and I don’t know if I will manage it.

HOWEVER, it is a gorrrrgeous, sumptuous, luxurious, striking piece of clothing. It did make me feel like a Renaissance lady while making it and even now, wearing it, as it is. Would I do it again, knowing all I know, even if I got the yarn for free? Hm, I doubt it. It’s a beautiful piece of clothing, but let’s be serious, when am I going to wear it, even if I got the size down to a T? It’s sad to say it. Then again, the project is an UGH for a reason. Sigh