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Inspiration Behind The Lily Sweater
My inspiration came in the form of a bath mat. Many years ago I made a swirling bath mat out of T-shirt yarn. One day in June, while brushing my teeth I looked down at my toes and saw the bath mat below them and decided I needed to figure out how to make it into a sweater! When I pitched my bath mat sweater idea to Jessica of The Hook Nook she was all about it and graciously offered to support my design.
The Making of Lily
Lily is my absolute favourite type of construction. She’s a top down, circular yoke, with continuous rounds and, of course, no seaming kind of gal. If that’s not enough to sell you on the pattern then you should also know it has optional waist shaping and contains instructions for customizing both the body and sleeve length to suit your needs and height. On top of this, since The Hook Nook yarn is a thick worsted weight it works up lightning fast and myself and a couple of my testers made ours in one weekend.
The one I made in one weekend was not my first, however. I had a lot of difficulty getting the petals just right on the yoke and frogged my yoke probably around 5 times during the designing process. It was so challenging to work in increases and keep the petals spiralling and the stitch counts just right, but once I cracked the code I was ecstatic.
I completed my first sample, blocked her (like the good little crocheter that I am), and -*drumroll*- the armpits were WAY too low (insert profanity here). I was SO disappointed in myself, but, I had enough to write up the pattern and account for the saggy armpits so my testers did not suffer the same fate as me.
Thankfully, Lily was a relatively easy design to grade. Circular yokes are hit and miss – they can either grade in a few minutes or take a whole day. Lily was the latter and I love her for it.
After I finished grading and writing up the pattern I had to decide on a name for my new baby. The petals were definitely giving me a leafy, petally, floral vibe so I googled something along the lines of “Women’s flower names” and I was not disappointed. While other floral names made my short list (I’m keeping them secret because I may use them for future designs), Lily just fit perfectly.
Lily is graded for women’s sizes XS-5XL according to the Craft Yarn Council Standard Sizes. This means they are graded for a 26-62 inch bust. The pattern also includes some areas for customizing so you can be sure to have a garment that fits your gorgeous shape, whether you’re short or tall, full sized or ultra slim – I’ve got you covered.
You will need 600 (660, 740, 850, 900)(950, 1000, 1070, 1130) metres or 4 (5, 5, 6, 6)(6, 7, 7, 8) balls of The Hook Nook Main Squeeze yarn for a standard length sweater. If you make it cropped or shorter sleeves than the sample, expect to use less yarn or if you’re making it more of a tunic or dress you will need more.
Testing of The Lily Sweater
Next task – assemble the testing dream team. This tester group was phenomenal. Often during testing I have testers who do not finish, or who I have to chase for notes and photos – but not this group. They all submitted notes and photos on time and fortunately I only had a few minor tweaks, and one major tweak, to make before finalizing the pattern.
What was the major tweak? Somehow, I’m not sure, I managed to add an extra stitch to every – single – stitch – count from round 2 through the entire body. So I had to go through and subtract one from hundreds of stitch counts. Ouch.
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Without further ado, here are the lovely testers and the photos of their final pieces:
Fatima - @aquarius_make
Liz - @littleowldesigns_
Haley - @haleyhandcrafted
Amy - @theramos6
Chris(tine) - @hookedbychrisho
Kinzee - @twopeascrochet
Leslie - @hooked.on.yarnics
Courtney - @shea_crochet
Jessica - @coycrochet
Bibi - @crochetaroundtheglobe
Nicole - @nixie_pixie_crochet
How lucky am I to have had each of these women test Lily? The luckiest! They found errors big and small, communicated with me throughout the testing phase, gave me some of the most thorough notes, and their pictures speak for themselves – gorgeous. Thank you all so much!
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Now, for the YARN
I was over the moon when Jessica from The Hook Nook agreed to support Lily and my next pattern to be released (stay tuned). Jessica and I first met at the Our Maker Life event in Chicago in July of 2018. We actually stayed in the same AirBnB together. Let me tell you, she is just as sweet as she is online. Somehow we spent a whole long weekend together and this is the only photo I have of us, with Vincent from Knot Bad.
Fun fact: Jessica and I also share a birthday! I am one year older than her, but who’s counting? Needless to say, I couldn’t ask for a better birthday buddy or Scorpio sister.
Since I was using her yarn for two designs I chose to used the Small Stuff for the other design and wanted to try two different yarns (duh!) so I chose the Main Squeeze worsted weight yarn for the Lily Sweater. Jessica shipped the yarn to me in record time.
The day the yarn arrived I got more than I expected from that sweet human. She sent me a couple of her hooks to try, some rad stickers, perfect gold darning needles, a set of skein savers, all topped off with some fun confetti and a hand written note! Thank you Jessica!
The Main Squeeze yarn is worsted weight and has 160 metres or 175 yards per skein. It’s 100% acrylic, is incredibly soft and has great bounce to it. The recommended hook size is a 5.5mm hook, but I went with a 5mm because I’m a loosey goosey crocheter.
Main Squeeze comes in 8 delicious colours; I wish you luck deciding because they’re all perfect. I made my sample in “Rose Gold” and it lived up to all of my expectations. I definitely plan to make something in “Pinot Noir” and “Multigrain” in the near future.
After my last few designs being fingering and lace weight this worsted weight was a DREAM to work with. I couldn’t believe how quickly progress happened! This yarn is definitely on the heavier side of worsted as well, like an aran weight. Because of its heaviness I definitely would not recommend subbing it for a DK project but I think it could totally stand up for an aran weight project.
Overall, I absolutely fell in love with this yarn and cannot wait to work with it again!
I hope you all love the Lily Sweater as much as I do – remember to tag me @ilovetinderbox in your WIP and final photos of Lily so I can see which colour you chose!
Happy crocheting,
Courtney
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