Top with Crocheted Sleeves

This is another one of my works in progress that has been languishing for several years.  Three years, to be exact, almost exactly.  I started it on September 5, 2009.  This is a pattern from Nashua Handknits, from the North American Designer Collection No. 8.  I purchased the booklet and yarn for three of the patterns all at the same time.  I knit the body in the round, then blocked it and set it aside because I didn't feel that my crocheting skills were up to the task of finishing it.  Thank goodness for The Unique Sheep Crochet Block of the Month Club.  I joined it to learn to crochet, and it worked!  Seriously, have you joined yet?  The designs are wonderful, interesting, challenging, but not too challenging.  And of course the yarn is from The Unique Sheep, and their yarns always make me happy.  It is the best.

Last weekend I picked it back up again and crocheted the sleeves.  I will confess that the topology of the  sleeves really perplexed me until I actually started working them.  You crochet from each side of the armhole and join at the top.  There is no sleeve portion in the underarm, which I was sort of expecting, being a sleeve and all.  I finished up the neckline crochet last night.  Here is a close up of the crocheted portion.

Pattern:  Nashua Handknits Top with Crochet Sleeves by Mari Lynn Patrick
Pattern Book:  Nashua Handknits NHK40, North American Designer Collection No. 8
Yarn:  Nashua Handknits Creative Focus Cotton DK
Needle:  US  (3.75 mm)
Hook:  USF5 (3.75 mm)

Top with Crocheted Sleeves

I started this top over a year ago.  It is from Nashua Handknits, The North American Designer Collection No. 8.  I finished up the easy part ages ago and it has been languishing in my unfinished pile waiting for me to tackle the crochet part.  I modified the pattern to knit the body in the round (anything to avoid finishing work - that is one of the wonderful thing about lace shawls, almost no finishing) but now I have to figure out how to do the crochet, and while I am an advanced knitter, my crochet skills are still very much at the beginner level.  But I will figure it out, never fear.  I pulled out the pattern instructions today and was looking through them.  The next step was to block the body, so I wove in the ends and the body is blocking.  Once that is done, I'll start the crochet.

I was thinking about my trip and Turkey and I realized that I never mentioned the guide we had in Istanbul.  She was delightful, her name is Gulden.  I think because we only had three days there, and only two of them were really spent with her we didn't get to know her that well.  But she was an excellent guide, and a lot of fun.  Bruce and would like to go back and see more of Turkey, and Smithsonian Journeys offers some great tours there.  Who knows, maybe we'll see her again.