Some Assembly Required

For once in my life I hope to get ahead of the season and complete a cozy sweater before it actually gets cold here.  

I decided a crochet project might be fun, and decided on Ariana - a free pattern from Berroco. The pattern was created for Berroco's Lanas yarn, but I decided to go with Ultra Alpaca - also a Berroco yarn and conveniently available in the colors I wanted and with the same yardage per 100 g. skein. And off I went -- 

I completed the squares and partial squares as directed - leaving off the final (MC) round to be added during assembly - and gave myself a pat on the back for getting that far so quickly. Then I read the directions for assembly. Had I bothered to check reviews on Ravelry for this sweater I surely would have read the assembly directions before making even one square. Most reviewers who left pattern notes mentioned that they had issues with the assembly - and no surprise, so did I.  Now, I fully admit that knitting is my first language and I am not as fluent in crochet-speak, but I can usually figure it out. Not this time.

So, after thinking a bit, I went back and added the final round of crochet to the squares and decided to start sewing them together. Like so - 

We'll see how this works out - fingers crossed I'll make it to the finish line! When the squares are assembled there will still be ribbing to knit, but I feel fairly confident I can manage that. Good thing I started early, isn't it? 😀