I recently purchased a pair of high top shoes for a little girl that I thought were absolutely adorable, but I also thought the shoes needed a little something, and I decided that the little something they needed was a coordinating crochet sweater. Before I learned to crochet finding such a sweater would have been an impossible task, but in the two decades since I first took hook to yarn, what had been the drudgery of gift giving has been transformed into a joy.

The first step on my gift giving venture was to go through my stash to find yarn that would coordinate with the shoes. I had bought quite a few yarns in the early part of the pandemic, so that didn’t take long at all:

With that task completed, the next thing I needed to do was choose a pattern.

After giving it some thought, I settled on the Eloise Sweater, inspired by the book series written by Kay Thompson. It is a sweater that I have made in the past and which has been very well received, so I decided to stick with something I knew would work.

With the yarn and a pattern chosen, I got to work, first crocheting the pleated skirt part of the sweater. The front of the sweater looked great:

But the back of the sweater had more than a few ends to weave in:

Undeterred, I moved forward, crocheting the bodice of the sweater, and then I wove in every single end and trimmed each one:

Then, to get an overview of my progress, I folded the sweater so I could see how the exterior looked:

The sweater still needs two sleeves, a couple of buttons so it can keep the wearer warm, but it is very close to done, and I once again get to experience the joy of gift giving, one stitch at a time.