Katydid

 My friend Kate was telling me one night about her favorite type of summer shirt. As I scoured the internet with her looking for a shirred bandeau-top, tunic-like top, I had the idea to knit one. 

I fought with the idea for a few days, typed up the pattern, and then finally cast on to only come up short about 20 meters of yarn. So I put it away until I received the perfect yarn from my friend, Sammy. 

A hank of DK and a hank of fingering weight. Both yarns held the colors of orchids and while they didn’t match, they were close enough to what I was wanting. 

I messed around with the pattern in a spreadsheet until I was satisfied with it enough to knit up a prototype. And here it is. 

DK bust, fingering weight bottom, with ties from fingering weight at the top of the bust.  There is so much stretch to the bust that this is a size XS on a S figure of my niece. 

I have already cast on my own, sizing down for myself also. I’d rather have it more form fitting and tighter in the bust so I don’t have to wear a bra with it. 

I will be releasing the pattern real soon on my website, Payhip and Ravelry. 

Knitting Summer Tops

So, I've been on a sweater knitting kick for the past year to year-and-a-half now. What I haven't found is the best sweater for my figure... an inverted hourglass HA! Big bust, big arms, big waist, big hips, big legs, short legs. But I'm not a rectangle as I do have some curves. So I decided to create my own empire waist sweater, which I already know that silhouette looks better on me than almost anything else.

As I've been knitting this summer top, I have been thinking about the next design I want to make. A top down ribbed summer top. It's a lot more math, but I think I can get it --- hope so anyway. I have a vision of it in this most gorgeous pink... and I found that pink, Fizzy Flamingo, by my friend, Kate, at Graphic Dyeworks.

In the meantime while I wait for that yarn, I am knitting on the empire waist top. I have a spreadsheet and pattern written up for 9 or 10 sizes, from 30-62 bust. I have tweaked and tweaked this entire pattern a dozen times over, so I am hoping once I get this top done, that makers will want to test the pattern for me and it doesn't have any stupid little errors in it.

This is what I have done so far. Lots of positive ease under the empire waistband, negative ease above it. (Or, the makers can choose to have positive ease above also.) I knit it up in 100% cotton for a cool summer top that I won't drown in, nor will I overflow it. This has been a whole new world for me - now I need to figure out bottom up sweaters. I have knit them, but can't wrap my head around designing them. Ha!