Zebra gets a hoodie!

Robert has been asking me to make his zebra a new sweater. I finally got around to it. He raided my stash looking for my colorful yarn and found this self striping sock yarn.

I crochet it with my #1 steel hook and the whole thing is done entirely in alternating rows of DC and SC. The back is worked back and forth all the way up to the top of the head shaped to fit behind the ears. the front of the hoodie is worked back and forth leaving holes for the ears to poke through. the front of the sweater is crochet directly onto the back leaving about 4 rows unworked which became arm holes. the arms were done last.

How I make my grannie squares

This is the method I have come up with to create a granny square that I find most appealing as far as the seam that shows up and other things.

ch4, join with a slip stitch to 1st chain.

round 1: Insert hook into ring yo and and draw up a loop, yo and draw through 2 loops on hook, chain 2, 2dc in ring, ch2, (3dc, ch2) in ring 3 times. join with slip stitch to top of 1st chain 2.

round 2: insert hook into last ch2 space made, yo and draw up a loop, yo and draw through 2 loops on hook, ch2. (3dc, ch2, 3dc) in next corner ch 2 space repeat * to * 3 times total. In last ch2 corner space work: 3dc, ch2, 2dc join with slip stitch to top of 1st chain 2 or round (this makes your chain up the last DC in the round)

round 3: insert hook into space where you just joined, yo, draw up a loop, yo, draw through 2 loops on hook, ch2, 2dc in same space. 3dc, ch2, 3dc in next ch2 corner space and each corner space there after. 3dc in spaces between 3dc clusters on previous row. after working last corner space slip stitch to top chain from beginning of round.

round 4: insert hook into space just created, yo, draw up loop, yo, draw through 2 loops on hook, ch2. Work groups of 3dc between each space on previous row. ON corners work 3dc, ch2, 3dc in each ch2 corner space. In last space work 2dc and slip stitch to the top of your ch2 from start of round.

See, every other round you are chaining up and that counts as the 1st dc of your 3dc group. than on the other rounds your chain up counts as your last DC of last DC 3 group of round. This I feel hides the “seam” best. your seam also stays centered along one side. I devised this after many yars of trial and error and not liking the way my grannies looked.

I only use chain spaces on the corners.

I think that inserting the hook and creating a stitch right on the 1st one also helps hide the appearance of the traditional ch 3 at the start of the rounds.

There are other ways to beef up your starting chain if interested in that as well.

I worked a grannie and wrote down each step as I went to make this post ☺

Here is the grannie I made for this post. the seam runs up towards the top.

The Big Book of Crochet Sweaters

This is a book I have had in my collection for a while now. I have not made any but it is a very nice book. It contains 10 sweater designs. They are sized as small, medium and large but the stitch patterns are quite repetative so making them larger than that shouldn't be much of a problem. The book contains a clear stitch guide, inches to mm conversion chart and US to metric hook conversion chart. Also clear color photos for each pattern included in the book.

The book does not rate the patterns by difficulty but some are pretty basic and others contain more detailed stitch patterns or color changes.

I have included images of all the sweaters in this book and you can click on any of these pages for a larger blown up view to better see the sweaters.

I have not made any of them as of yet because though sweaters are pretty i just have not been inclined to make one my self.

You can find the book on Amazon