I finished my first crochet project more complicated than a rectangle or amigurimi! It has been a productive few days, insofar as looking for jobs, crafting, looking at pictures of cats and reading children's books in Irish can be considered productive.
The last picture isn't great, in terms of quality or my face, but it shows nicely how it bolero sits.
The pattern is Short and Sweet from Stitch 'n' Bitch: The Happy Hooker. It took me a while to get the hang of the pattern, there was a lot of ripping out, and it still doesn't make the same intuitive sense to me that knitting does - can you correct a mistake from the row above it? Who knows! - but by the time I was half-way through I had it more or less memorised, and the fact that it builds up so quickly is awfully satisfying. The pattern was a bit unclear in parts, in particular in describing the increases on the front, but largely it was very straightforward, and a good project for someone looking to move up from 'beginner'.
I used a 5mm crochet hook and Rico Essentials Cotton DK. It's mercerised cotton, so it has a nice sheen to it. I could probably have gone down a size, but I'm quite delighted with it as it is. Four years after my first attempt at learning I feel justified in saying that I can crochet, so I'm experiencing a disproportionate sense of accomplishment right now.
(I also recently made a list of twenty-five things to do before I turn twenty-five, one of which was crochet a garment, so I made something AND I get to cross something off a list. I'm on fire over here. No really, send help.)
