Crochet

The (Troubled) Crochet Ruffled Romance Sweater

April 19, 2019
Cover image for the Crochet Troubled Ruffled Romance Sweater

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There some designers that I absolutely love. I follow them diligently and I cannot wait to see what they’re going to do next. One of those designers is Lee Sartori from Coco Crochet Lee!

A while back she asked for some testers for a new pattern, the Crochet Ruffled Romance Sweater. It was a beautiful spring sweater she designed specifically for a CAL and you can find the pattern on Ravelry here. I could not stop myself from jumping at the opportunity and was out of myself when Lee accepted me as a tester!

Of course that no project just happens easily with me (thinking about the Sweet Knit Sweater or the Granny Square Tape Yarn Bags…) so here is the story of how I failed at testing the Crochet Ruffled Romance Sweater.

The Crochet Ruffled Romance Sweater designed by Coco Crochet Lee with model wearing a purple sweater

Inspiration

I know how to crochet, but Lee… REALLY KNOWS how to crochet! I mean, her designs are beautiful and fun and absolutely irresistible! Check her Instagram if you need convincing (@coco.crochet.lee). And if that wasn’t enough she is also the nicest person!

When she asked for testers for a new design I volunteered without thinking or even looking twice at the design. That’s how confident I was! And of course, the project did not disappoint! It was a seamless spring sweater, worked in the round and beautiful ruffled sleeves with lace details. You can see the Ruffled Romance Sweater below and the beautiful Lee!

So there I was, completely happy-psyched-out of my mind and ready to test!! I could not wait to make Lee proud!

The Project

After cooling down a bit, I looked at my calendar and that cooled me down quite a bit. I had 7 days to test the pattern. Most of those days, I was going to be on vacations, traveling with friends. This would be great if we didn’t have activities planned for almost every day. Plus… I wasn’t sure I had the right yarn. Again…

But I was not giving up! Ok, so first things first! Let’s look at the stash and see what can I work with. Actually, there’s this dark pink yarn that I have, but I’m not sure if it isn’t too thick for this design… I’ll just to have to swatch it out! After finishing the swatch it was obvious it just wouldn’t work for this sweater. Still, I’m not giving up! Lee deserves better!!

So let’s get back to finding that yarn!! Contrarily to what you may think, it is really hard to do in Bangkok! And besides, we were leaving to Chiang Mai so that was where I focused my research. And apparently, there is a yarn store there!! A few days and a lot of kilometers later I finally got my yarn.

This was pretty great if I didn’t have only 2 days to finish the project, and all of them completely filled up with activities. I tried. I swear I did. All the free minutes I could find I would be crocheting, but I just couldn’t go beyond the shoulders.

Image of the yoke of the ruffled romance sweater in purple as a work in progress

I missed the deadline but that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to finish the sweater. Might as well participate in the CAL! So after work, there I was crocheting the sweater. It took me a while… but I finally finished it! On the last day of the CAL! 🙂

The Crochet Ruffled Romance Sweater designed by Coco Crochet Lee modelled by Susana from Fluffy Stitches

Lesson Learned

It’s great to be a tester! You can help the designer and of course, gain some practice on a technique that you might not be familiar with. But take into account how much time you have to accomplish it. I didn’t and I hate the fact that I let one of my favorite designers down, even if she was the best about it!

I misjudged the time I would have available to crochet and I highly misjudged the time I needed to make it. Doing single crochet is easy, but it progresses slowly and I did not take that into account.

So, if there is anything that I take away from this… don’t rush into being a tester! Your work counts so chose your projects wisely! 😉

Pinterest of the Ruffled Romance Sweater

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