01
What this one is
This one's for a cooler evening when you want something with a collar for once, not another cardigan. It's a polo, worked flat in three pieces, with a proper V-neck opening and a DC collar that actually sits like a collar. Make it for the person in your life who likes their crochet to look store-bought, or for yourself, if you're that person.
Your hands spend most of the time in the mesh body panels, one back at 46 cm wide and two fronts at 23 cm each, before moving to the tidy work of the SC and DC edging and the seven-row collar. Between the panels, the seaming, and the collar, plan on an evening or two at the hook.
02
Try it another way
The panel widths given here — 46 cm for the back, 23 cm for each front — are for a size S, so scale those numbers up or down for other sizes and just make sure all three panels finish at the same exact length before you seam. The 15 cm shoulder width and 16 cm V-neck opening are the other two numbers to adjust together, since a wider neck opening means less shoulder to seam closed. For color, this pattern lends itself well to a solid body with a contrast collar, since the collar is worked separately onto the neckline after the panels are joined. You could also swap in a different lightweight yarn altogether for a heavier drape, just re-swatch with your 3 mm hook first since mesh stitch shows tension changes readily. If you want a longer collar, the pattern already builds in room for this: keep working Row 2 and Row 3-style increase rows, or drop the increases once you like the size, since the seven-row example is just that — an example. The 18 cm sleeve opening marker is another easy one to shift for a deeper or shallower armhole, and since it's marked with stitch markers before seaming, you can test the fit on a body before committing to a needle and thread.
There's real satisfaction in a garment that reads as tailored but is built from three flat rectangles and a lot of honest mesh. You get to practice a few different skills in one project: the multiple-of-three foundation chain and its slightly fussy tail-trimming step, clean SC edging worked two stitches into each space, and a collar that grows through increase rows until it sits right. The V-neck opening, left unseamed between the shoulders, is a small design choice that does a lot of visual work. And because the collar is worked directly onto the neckline rather than pieced in separately, you get that satisfying moment where a flat pile of mesh panels suddenly becomes a shirt with a collar you could wear out.
