In the very beginning (last January) it was a heathered purple swatch.
I received yarn in the spring. I was surprised to see bright red yarn - my idea was of a nontraditional feminine military jacket, and the surprise color had me rethink my own vision. (There are good and bad things about being given a color for a project so that it will tie in with the scheme of the publication - I think of it as a happy challenge.)
And then Frankenstein was born. If you're not familiar at all with Tunisian crochet, here are the basics: the stitches are teeny-tiny, and do not stretch; they take up more yarn than traditional crochet, and they also take WAY more time. (They also slant a little, but we won't go there.) I had mentally scheduled myself for a "normal" sweater, which turned out to be only a fraction of the amount of time I really needed.
(And then to top it all off, I had to crochet the sleeves twice. But we won't go there either.)
We happened to take a trip to the coast towards the end of the project, and I was disappointed to miss out on the great view outside the car windows, as I was furiously crocheting. I was lucky enough to be working reduced hours from home at that point, and spent a great deal of time on the couch, also furiously crocheting.
And then, in the middle of June, I finished.
Somewhere along the line, the jacket kind of told me how it wanted to look, and I strayed from my sketch just a bit. I ended up adding button bands towards the end, which brought it a little closer to a band-jacket look, but not horrible. (And if it were heathered purple, it wouldn't look at all like a band jacket!)
Frankenstein wasn't finished with me, though. I sent it off across the pond, and a month later it came back to me, marked as undeliverable. But I fought back, and sent it again, and the nice people at Inside Crochet made it look pretty.
So now it's not Frankenstein anymore, and I'm happy that it turned out so well! I hope people try it - it's definitely the kind of pattern that will try your patience, but mostly just because of the time it takes to finish. I think it's worth the time, though (because most of the fun of crocheting your own clothing is the crocheting)!
