I continue to experiment with my Swingy Shawlivest paid pattern. This time I decided to add sleeves to make a Swingy Shawlivest cardigan-style and also added pockets. I love how this turned out. It's so swingy and almost cape-like; I know this is going to keep me nice and cozy come next winter. You can browse my other Swingy Shawlivest blog posts at this link.
I used a regular DC mesh stitch for this one, rather than the EDC in the original pattern.
After working the body of the Shawlivest to the desired length, I continued working a twisted rope fringe across the hem without cutting the yarn.
To make twisted rope fringe: SC into next ch 1 space. Pull up 16-inch loop and twist 40 times before joining with sl st to top of next DC. Repeat across hem. (Mine ended up with 228 fringes.)
Mikey of The Crochet Crowd has a video tutorial showing an even better method (similar to what I did, but he uses slip stitches exclusively, and his version is probably more durable over time that way, so I recommend doing it Mikey's way). You can increase the space between the fringes by just working more slip stitches in between them, if you wish.
It only took me about two weeks to crochet most of this cardigan. But it took me over a year to actually finish the project because I stalled out while doing the twisted fringe. All that twisting was seriously aggravating the elbow tendinopathy in my dominant arm. I managed to work my way across maybe the first 25% of the hem over a period of about 11 months (that was less than 60 fringes in ELEVEN MONTHS, guys ... seriously — ouch!!!), and then I realized that I just couldn't do it anymore.
I showed the project to my husband and shared with him how defeated I felt by my disability. We both felt it would be such a sad thing if I wasn't able to finish it because of that. He asked me to explain to him what my process was for making the twisted fringe, and then in secret my husband went searching around on the internet trying to find something that would help me finish making the fringe without hurting my arm so much.
What he found was nothing short of magical.
Before my husband found it, I had no idea a tool like this existed.
He found and bought for me a Maple Quad End Fringe Twister from Etsy seller theknitstore. He knew I didn't need a tool with four twisters on it, since I was only making one fringe at a time on this project, but he decided to get the quad twister anyway (the seller also has a dual end option) so, in his words, I would have more possible options for using the tool when I make other things in the future. What a sweet and thoughtful man I married, right?!?!
When the tool arrived I watched a YouTube video on how to operate it, and even though I was only working with one loop being twisted at a time, the tool made the work SO MUCH easier on my arm. Yes, there's still some manual movement involved, but it wasn't nearly as strenuous as twisting the long loops by hand, and the tool made the process so much faster.
Bottom line: After only being able to make around 60 twisted fringe loops by hand over the course of about 11 months, with the fringe twisting tool I finished the remaining 168 loops in ONLY TWO DAYS with no painful aftereffects from the work. No matter how you slice it, that is a definite win.
After completing the fringe, the only things left to do were to add sleeves and also a couple of patch pockets on the front.
I attached the yarn at the bottom of an armhole to begin working the sleeves. I just crocheted in the same mesh pattern using joined rows. I put in some stitch decreases for the first five rows and then worked the rest of the sleeve straight, and then I finished the sleeve with a few rows of fpdc/bpdc ribbing.
For the pockets I used the pocket pattern from the Lazy Diamond Boho Pocket Shawl, and I think they complement the cardigan nicely. The pockets are about 10 inches square, so they're nice and roomy for keeping hands warm. I might add a fabric liner to the pockets later (useful if I want to keep anything small in there, like coins, which might otherwise fall out between the crochet stitches), but I'll see how I feel about that later.
