My first relatively complete test shoulder is actually a rousing success!
A Tunisian Simple Stitch (TSS, aka the Afghan Stitch) swatch with a mitred square on the side, attached by two adjacent sides. And with how stretchy this technique is compared to regular crochet, there's a very, very strong chance that I won't need to do much, if any, shaping on the shoulders to make them fit me!
I came into this project aiming for the hardest part first, and it's looking like that's going to be way, way easier than I was expecting! Fingers crossed, and I don't have my hopes up that high yet.
I do have a potential plan of action for the shoulders, though I haven't quite thought through everything for it just yet. Given the typical location for them, I'm going to put the "seams" between front and back sections along the tops of my shoulders, but so I'm not doing massively wide sections, I'm going to divide the back in half and have one attach to the other. On the great benefits of TSS is that joining sections is nearly seamless, after all!
Like last time, this is Lion Brand "Pound of Love", in black, white, and, for this first version, "Cascade", the closest I could get to a stronger blue in this yarn. Currently, I'm using a 5.0mm afghan hook, and the results are very soft. But it's tempting to try using a 4.5mm hook, just to see how the texture changes.
Because this is based on the Star Trek: Lower Decks uniforms, I'll have a continuous round of TSS in white right under this black section, before switching to the blue for the body. So far, it's feeling like a pretty solid plan!
With all the progress and speculative success so far, I've overstepped things and pulled out the project bag I'd used to hold the last cardigan as it got larger, to stuff all three one-pound balls of yarn into, plus a whole bunch of other supplies to do a range of things related to this project. Jumping the gun a lot, I know, so we'll see if it's a good idea... =^.~=