For Halloween, Little Miss required a bright pink waistcoat. Yes, I could have bought some fabric and run one up (ish) on the sewing machine, but I had loads of neon pink wool in my stash, and due to its verging-on-the-hideous, I can't see it being used for much else. Of course this then presented me with the perfect crochet opportunity - stash-busting specific item, hurrah :)
I trawled ravelry, Pinterest, books, and magazines for a waistcoat design, and finally happened upon a pattern for a baby jacket in my brilliant One Skein Wonders book. (I say My book as in my copy, I didn't actually write it or anything impressive like that). The design is called the Dancing Poppies Mini Bolero, but is really a short-sleeved cardigan. The pattern is highly adaptable, very easy and worked in one piece from the top down.
I have to be honest, I'm not overly pleased with it. For a start the yarn is Just. Awful. It was given to me ages ago, I simply can't turn down yarn of any sort, and this sort is pretty bad. Quite splitty, veeeery plasticky (you know that horrid squeak of plastic yarn on metal hook....), and garish in colour. Shocking pink indeed. However, it did fit the bill for the pink vampire outfit.
I had to increase the depth of the top-to-shoulder piece to allow it to fit a nearly 10 year old, basically by crocheting a few more rows, and increasing a little every 3rd row. The bottom section which is the main front, back and sides are then worked and I added a couple of extra rows of the mesh. I left too large a gap for the armholes so I would make that smaller next time. But otherwise I guess it's not too bad for a last minute speed crochet garment :)
The next step was to bling it up a bit, Halloween style. I cut out a small bat template, it's about 2 inches across. Then pinned the template to some scraps of black felt and cut out six little bats.
I pinned the bats at random angles onto the front of the cardigan, and then sewed them on very roughly with the sewing machine - a single line of stitches across the middle, for each bat.
Ta-dah! Batty pink cardigan with matching pink Halloween mitts, and obligatory fangs ....
