Split Neck Tee from Fitted Knits

Wow, who would have thought this would take me so long. It's in Elsebeth Lavold's cotton frappe. Really, I don't who comes up with the gauge on this labels. I knit it at 6 stitches to the inch on size 4 needles and really, it could be tighter. I like the yarn cuz, even though it's cotton, it has some stretch because it is a cabled construction (or is it chain?). And I love the color. When I saw it I had to get it. Navy blue with silver nylon parts running through it. The color is called "night", very fitting. For the trim I held together a strand of "dk weight" (again, totally false weight info) silk from Colourmart which is U.K. based (150 grams, aroudn 1200 yards for $16)and a strand of some pure sparkle hard stuff from Pinoguin that I got while in South Africa. It's really hard and scratchy, so a bit irritating on the neck, but it matched in color and I didn't want to order more yarn just for the trim so I used what I had.

The patten is not so fitting, despite coming from a book titled Fitted Knits. I added a little bit of waist shaping, but it's still mostly a rectangle. I think from now on I'm going to always include back darts as well as bust and waist shaping. I think decreasing in the back is more necessary than the front because at least in the front we have boobs (or in my case, booblets) to take up some of the volume, but in the back it's just a bunch of loose fabric with nothing to fill the void. Not flattering.

I had to adjust the gauge since I used a much finer yarn, so that I just knit according to the numbers for the 4th size. So I got a taste of what it's like to have to knit larger sizes. More stitches! And since it was knit in the round, all those tiny stockinette stitches just seemed to go on forever. I added the waist shaping in part just to break up the monotony. But actually, I like it. It's a cute design.

Oh, and for the clasp I got two little separate pieces and then linked them together with a ring. Got them at Walmart in Calgary on my recent trip to Banff National Park (I'll show pictures next post). Hmm, this top is pretty international.

Okay, enough info, here are the pics:





And that's it until next time, when I'll have another sweater of my own design to show. Til later, People!