Tag: geekycrochet

My toddler is in LOVE with Buzz Lightyear. You may have already seen the blanket I made him?

I started it one month before having my 3rd child, so it took me nearly a year to finish! But of course, during that year I didn’t get to work on it that often. There was at least a full 3 months where I didn’t even touch it.

It is all single crochet and at one point I think I had 50 bobbins! I used a 4.5 mm hook and worsted weight yarn. It is quite heavy and sort of stiff. I was trying to keep it from being too large but if I did another graphgan I would use a 5 mm hook so the drape is a bit looser.

My cute little boy was really excited to get it, but he won’t sleep with it. 🤷‍♀️ Kids.

I am now attempting to make him a Buzz Lightyear sweater. Maybe he will use this more. His older sister likes her unicorn sweater and and I will have to come up with some fancy sweater for my 3rd child as well.

I am writing out my pattern as I make it up. It won’t be a true pattern because I don’t plan on making size options. This is just the one size I am using that will fit my one child right now. I also created a Ravelry project page.

I am using worsted weight yarn. Red Heart Super Saver melon green. Some leftover black from my stash. Red Heart Super Saver medium purple. Not sure what brand this leftover white is.

My main stitch is going to be the hdc (half double crochet) because it gives enough bulk when using a large hook and makes the project quick.

My hook is a 7 mm. It looks like I have about 11 hdc by 8 rows in 4″ as a gauge.

I am starting with green at the bottom, and working my way up.

Foundation hdc 67. Ch 1, turn and hdc in the same spot (counts as the first stitch). I had more problems than usual with keeping my stitch count proper, stitch markers are your friend!

After the foundation row, do another row of hdc with the green, then switch to black for 2 rows.

I am adding these single crochet white rows to represent the bendy part of Buzz’s waist. I am doing the SC in the back loop only and then switching back to black and doing hdc in the front loop only.

I want those unused loops to both be on the “right side” of my work. This is an amigurumi trick to get straight lines and I am not sure it will work the same with my loose gauge but I figured it is worth a try.

I also do the first and last stitch under both loops because I want my project to feel sturdy. In mosaic crochet when you join new yarn you use both loops, so I joined yarn with the same technique.

I then did 2 rows of black, another row of white, 2 rows of black, a row of white, and 2 rows of black. For the color changing rows I always used the loop on the wrong side (sometimes that is the front loop and sometimes it is the back loop).

I also chose to just drag my yarn up the side instead of cutting it each time. I plan on putting a border on after that will cover the messy edges anyway so I would rather not have ends to weave in.

Now that the waist is done I have cut the black and I am using white again. When you look at Buzz you will notice he has two purple stripes across his front… but the angle makes it complicated. I decided my sweater was going to be a bit more abstract and not an actual image of his costume. Maybe I am being too lazy. I hope it’s good enough.

I have done 3 rows of hdc in white, then one row in dark purple, then 3 more in white. Why did I do just one row of purple? Well I am using the leftover yarn from that Toy Story blanket and this piece of yarn was the perfect length to just do one row.

I then switched to green for 3 more rows until I decided the length was sufficient. Now the tricky math part.

I started with 67 hdc, but I will be adding a border along the front opening, so I folded it into an approximate sweater shape and counted the front panel stitches. I did a few rows and measured it on my not-so-cooperative toddler.

With all that very official measuring I decided each front panel will have 15 stitches. And I want them to be at least 7″ tall from the armpit hole to the shoulder based on his other clothes.

Therefore, I did an extra 13 rows of 15 stitches for each front panel and 13 rows of 39 stitches for the back panel. The stitch that had my stitch markers got used for both the front and back panels.

And I like to make the stitches match on the front, so with the first front panel, since my yarn was attached, I started at the outside edge, but with the second front panel I joined my yarn where the stitch marker was because a hdc doesn’t look quite the same on each side and I wanted the front to line up with the front. I also joined my back panel to the stitch marker near the 1st front panel because that makes all the hdc face the same way.

So far, this does not look like what I first envisioned. But it feels nice. Soft and stretchy. And it has worked up pretty quickly.

Technically, it has been 2 days since I started it, but I also managed to get 2 patterns updated to include right- and left-handed instructions for both interlocking and mosaic crochet (Preemie Love and Wild and Free) and I published a new pattern: Speedy Train!

I am going to publish this in two parts because it is quite long with my notes and ramblings and it may take me a few days to get back to this project.