It’s official.  I’m a huge Doris Chan fan.  Such a crochet nerd – I know the names of many crochet designers and the names of the patterns they have designed.  This one is Unchain My Heart.  Love it.  A lot.

Strangely, the extreme heat that we had at the beginning of 2012 has turned into extreme cold (well, for January). We’ve all been wearing long pants and long sleeves and – confession ahead – we’ve even had the heater on at times during the past couple of days. All for the benefit of the invalid, of course. This tunic is really going to hit the spot once winter does hit us. Crocheted in Patons Jet, it is warm and cosy and has a flattering fit. Just check out the internal shaping!

Like all the Doris Chan designs that I’ve crocheted, it’s done in one piece. I love that! Everything flows together beautifully. The back also has lovely shaping in it for the armholes.

This was a two week project for me, but that includes the time crocheting it in a different yarn right to the part where I joined the neckline, tried it on, and realised that it was too small. The perils of yarn substitution! A couple of days later I found the Jet on sale at Spotty, and restarted. I’d really like to try this again in a more summer-weight, yet drapey, yarn. It would be a marvellous summer/spring/autumn layer. I also worked an extra four rounds in the shell pattern before starting on the empire line waistline ribbing, so that the ribbing would hit me below the bust. And other than that, I just kept crocheting on until I had no more yarn left. I think that it is about four rows longer than the pattern specified.  It wasn’t a difficult pattern and it was rather fast once I got going.

Ravelled here.