Shaping Up

I was a bit worried about the shaping required for my crochet top. The top is worked mostly in one piece, apart from a front panel, so the thought of getting it wrong and having to rework the top (using a 1 mm hook!) was daunting.  I decided to do a practice piece. "Spend time to save time" perhaps. Turns out it wasn't too difficult. Though I think next time I will shorten the chain that replaces the missed shell when reducing. That should make the reduction less obvious.

This little piece also serves as a sample to work out how many repeats and rows I will need. I realised that my work is much smaller than the pattern. So I checked the front panel and, sure enough, I need to do a couple more repeats to make it workable.