Part 2 // Crochet Fade Sweater

Part 2 of the faded crochet sweater will walk us through the reverse raglan construction.

Inspiration and Design

As discussed in part 1 of the crochet fade sweater, the inspiration came from a knit sweater that I’ve owned since 2012. The first year I set off for my Masters degree in Syracuse NY. I know, significant difference in temperature from Puerto Rico to Syracuse.

Anyway, we are here to talk about the sweater not Syracuse, NY. Ever since I crocheted the Las Nubes top, I’ve been meaning to experiment more with the reverse raglan technique. Part 2 of the crochet fade sweater struck me as the perfect opportunity to do so.

Construction

Are you familiar with raglan shaping? With it we increase at 4 fixed points to work our yoke and armhole depth. Conversely, in the reverse raglan we decrease at 4 fixed points to work our yoke.

In order to work a reverse raglan we need 3 pieces.

1. The body
2. sleeves (2)

Once we have all these pieces, which we made in Part 1 of the crochet fade sweater, we can proceed with part 2 of said sweater. Joining everything together and working our yoke.

Part 2: Reverse Raglan

Measurements

My measurements:

Chest – 33.5”
Waist – 28.5
Upper arm – 12”
Wrist – 6.5 to 7”
Arm length (from underarm to wrist) – 19”

If you need to review notes and any other information please refer to part 1.

Reverse Raglan

Now we start the interesting part of this pattern. I would highly recommend watching the video for this part. Essentially, instead of increasing at 4 points to create our yoke and armhole opening, we will be decreasing in 4 points. These 4 points are where the sleeve meets the body, we will sc2tog from the body and sc2tog from the sleeve.This means that in each decrease round we will have decreased a total of 8 stitches. We will decrease using the normal sc decrease method.

Measurements needed for this part.

1. Underarm measurement
2. Armhole depth ( I went with a 7.25” armhole depth.) You can measure this from an existing garment of go t the craft yarn council and use the standard ones provided. Multiply your 1” gauge by the desired armhole depth to determine the number of rounds your yoke will have and how to distribute your stitches accordingly.

Based on my gauge and armhole depth I completed 29 rounds before doing 2 rows of short row shaping and the neckband.

Once you’ve determined your underarm measurement, I went with an underarm between 3.75 and 4”. Then, multiply your desired underarm by your 1” gauge to determine the number of stitches that we will use.

Proceed to mark the sides of your sweater with a stitch marker. This will mark the mid-point of your underarm. Count stitches on the body to the left and right of the midpoint and place stitch-markers. Count the same number of stitches on either sleeve.

For me, these were 16 stitches, would have been better off with 17 but that is hindsight for you.

Joining

With right sides facing use stitch markers to pin the sleeve to the body (these underarm stitches will not be worked into. We will seam these later.)

You should now have your body in the middle and sleeves pinned on either side. We will now begin working in a spiral. The left back shoulder determines the start of the round as well as the dec point.

1. Work ext-sc around the body and the outside of the sleeve. Remember to move the markers at the shoulder points up with each round. Stop 1 stitch before the first marker.
2. *sc2dec (replace marker), sc2dec, ext-sc to 1 stitch before the next marker, complete 2 (sc2dec), ext-sc to next marker; rep from * once more.

3. Next I worked 2 rnds of ext-sc with no decreases.

Note: Remember to change color after you complete 12 rounds in color 4.

I repeated steps 2 and 3 until I had completed 23 rounds. Then worked rounds 24 to 26 as follows.
Rnd24 – no dec
Rnd25 – dec
Rnd26 – no dec.

After round 26, I decreased every round until I completed round 29. Note for rounds 28 and 29 I worked sc for the front collarbone area and everything else in ext-sc. This paired with the 2 short rows makes the back taller than the front. This is not necessary but it does help avoid the back pulling on the front.

Neckline

Once these rows are complete, work hdc stitches for the front collarbone area and dc stitches for the rest. Finish off with 3 rounds of Fpdc, Bpdc rib for the neckline, cut yarn and fasten off.

Weave in your ends!

And there we have it! I hope you find this helpful or inspiring, do tag me if you make your own version!