Chainette Turtleneck – Oversized, Textured, Turtleneck Raglan Sweater

You guys..

 

I can’t even contain my excitement. The Chainette Turtleneck is FINALLY HERE! I have been working on this sweater for months, and I literally wear this sweater ALL THE TIME. I’m so obsessed with it and I’m so happy to share it with you today! Click here to go straight to the pattern or continue reading for more info and a coupon code!

Get the Chainette Turtleneck crochet kit from Lion Brand here.

About

Let me tell you why I made this sweater in the first place.

A few years ago, I bought a grey, turtleneck sweater that I just LOVE. I wear it all the time. There was just something about the shape of it that I found really flattering on my body. It was soft, textured, fuzzy, stretchy, warm, neutral coloured, not really “cropped” but fell to the upper-mid hip, oversized with fitted sleeves, and had a turtleneck. Check, check, check, check.. all my favourites in one sweater.

I never would have thought I would actually be able to replicate this sweater, since it was a raglan-style sweater. BUT.. after learning how to crochet a raglan sweater, replicating the shape of my favourite grey sweater was finally an option! It’s pretty amazing how much my design world has opened up since learning this new skill of top-down crochet. I wrote an entire blog post about learning how to crochet a raglan if you’re interested in reading about the process.

This sweater uses Lion Brand Chainette which I’ll go over later in this post – or you could click here and read my review from one of my Fiber Friday yarn review posts!

This post contains affiliate links. All opinions are my own. Any purchases made will help support Knits ‘N Knots blog content.

Construction

Here are some details about what it was like to design this sweater:

Basically, what I did was copy the shape of my grey sweater by laying my work over top of the store-bought sweater. If my shape varied from the existing sweater, I would rip out my work and start over again. Check out the photo below for a work-in-progress shot!

It took quite a few tries to figure out how to keep the rate of increases identical. This was my first time working a top-down sweater that had a different stitch count for the front/back sides than the sleeves. My Rosebud Raglan had the same stitch count for all 4 sides of the raglan before joining the yoke, and once I was finished the yoke, I didn’t increase any more for the front/back. I just moved on straight to the joining round. (Although, if you purchased the pattern, sizes medium through 5XL actually DO use this technique as well.)

For this sweater, though, I continued increasing on the front and back only for an extra-wide bust measurement because the store-bought sweater that I was trying to copy was very spacious in the bust area and had deep raglan increases. So, there are a number of rows worked in the yoke that have no increases on the sleeve edges, but maintain the same number of stitches, and increase only on the front and back edges. This is how we get those nice, deep raglan increases that extend far past the natural underarm, keeping the sleeves fitted but the bust wide. I’ve since learned that this is a common technique when shaping a crochet raglan.. although I *may* have thought I discovered something brand new to the crochet world for the first day or two until I realized it’s a common thing haha :p

I chose a textured stitch because I’m kind of tired of crochet rows looking like such defined rows, you know? In my opinion, that’s the one downfall that crochet has compared to knitting. Knitting always looks so sophisticated and crochet can look bulky and tacky, real quick. I wanted some sort of texture to make it look like a piece of smooth fabric instead of rows of crochet. I chose this texture (the same stitch as my Rosebud Raglan & Rosebud Poncho) because it does exactly that – hides the defined rows. It also hides the chain spaces from the raglan increases, which I also love!

This sweater is worked top-down, starting with the cowl. Then, we set up 4 points of increase for the raglan increases, and increase each round. The yoke gets joined to separate for the body and sleeves, then the body is worked, and the sleeves are worked last.

The store-bought sweater that I was trying to copy had a tiny, clear, stretchy thread through the final row of the sweater to slightly cinch the bottom for a more flattering fit.  I thought about doing this as well on my handmade version, but I tried one method of decreasing that worked out nicely and I was happy with how it turned out so I left it!

        

Yarn

This sweater uses Lion Brand Chainette yarn. I wrote an entire blog post on this yarn for one of my Fiber Friday yarn reviews. If you’re curious about this yarn or wondering if it’s worth ordering for a specific project, take a read here and hopefully you’ll get all your questions answered!

Basically, it’s one of my most favourite yarns I’ve ever used. Not only is it called “Chainette”, but it’s a chainette style yarn as well, which means no accidentally-only-crocheting-with-one-ply. The yarn itself is like a chain, similar to a shoelace. It’s soft as a cloud, and weighs next to nothing.  I love, love, love it. The fiber content is: 70% baby alpaca, 18% virgin wool, 12% polymide.

This sweater, like all of my new patterns, is size-inclusive. I graded it from XS-5X!

Sizes: XS (S/M, L/XL, 2X/3X, 4X/5X)

Balls Required: 6 (8, 9, 11, 11) balls of Lion Brand Chainette in Beige (#478-123)

Yardage: 748 (931, 1131, 1336, 1420) yds Chainette or similar category 4, worsted weight yarn that matches gauge

Yarn Substitutions: Most worsted weight yarns should work in place of Chainette regardless of fiber content, as long as gauge is met! I’ve seen people use Lion Brand Jeans, Heartland, and many other worsted weight yarns in place of Chainette and they all seemed to work out just fine.

If you’re wondering whether or not to use Chainette or whatever else in your stash, I recommend this yarn so much, and in my opinion it’s 1000% worth it. But – I’m sure whatever yarn you choose to crochet this sweater with will be amazing! I think I’m going to make another version in Lion Brand Jeans!

Can’t wait to see your sweater! I hope you love it as much as I do!

You can find the pattern in these places:

On my website here.

On Ravelry here.

On Etsy here.

Get the crochet kit here.

(Use the code “PATTERN10” for 10% off all patterns)

I can’t wait to see your WIPs! Make sure to tag me @knitsnknotswpg and use the pattern hashtag #ChainetteTurtleneck so that everyone can see your projects!

Happy crocheting,

Janine xx