Lattice Knit Tee

Catching up on blogging my finished projects from last weekend - here's my Cap Sleeve Lattice Top, which I adapted for a chunkier weight of cotton yarn.

 The yarn is a mystery - my mom says I gave it to her when I moved to Asia in 2007, but I have no recollection of it at all - anyhow, she gave it back to me last month and since I'm on my no-shopping, stash-busting month... I decided it would be a good yarn to take camping to test out the Cap Sleeve tee pattern I've been wanting to make.

I have some yarn in mind for a more delicate fall version in the correct gauge, but shopping must wait. Also, if this yarn had gotten ruined while camping, eaten by a bear, dropped in the creek, victim of a terrible s'mores accident, etc...  I wouldn't have minded so much.  Happily is survived unscathed and turned into rather a nice garment.

 I originally thought it would be a slouchy tee to layer up in my morning yoga class as the weather gets cooler, but I like it for work wear too.  I wore it over this little black dress and decided to tie the belt of the dress over the sweater too, which dresses up the overall look of the tee. It's really cozy and I weirdly got more compliments on this simple tee than anything I've made this year.

People at my work really loved it - and they could tell (but in a good way) that I made it.  I think that is because it's chunky yarn.  I've sort of sworn off the chunky yarn, even if it is super-fast to knit - maybe for that exact reason, I don't really want to look like a home ec project all the time.  I'm not trying to hide it, but I also don't go out of the way to talk about sewing and knitting at work.

This is the first thing I've worn this year that anyone at work asked me if I made.  Still, I like this top and will make at least one more.

It was a fun project to create - I wish I had slowed down and taken a picture before stitching the side seams up.  It's a giant rectangle with a bind-off and cast back on boat-neck.  Fold it in half, seam it up each side up to the lattice design and: volia!  -- it's a cap sleeve tee!

I made the bottom edges wider and decreased to add some waist shaping to accommodate for my pear-derriere. I used size 11 needles, started with 85 stitches and decreased up to 73, every 6th stitch after I finished the ribbing.

The main body was a great socializing project - The ribbing was fast and then the stockinette was perfect for the campout. I knit stockinette in the dark around the fire, while chatting with people, I  set it down and picked it back up in a hurry... I also watched some Project Runway the following weekend while flying through the second stockinette part.  

The lattice was more of a reclusive concentration part of the project.  I actually ripped most of it out because I made a mistake and dropped one of the yarnovers while I was watching Circus on Amazon Prime. I was engrossed in the show, so I didn't notice it until a few rows later.  (It's a fun show!)

Unravelling something with this many yarnovers turned out to be harder than most frogging I've done, so I had to go back farther than I intended to get everything back on the needles safe and sound.  Even with that little glitch, I knit the whole thing in 10 days as just my chill out and relax project.  I highly recommend.  If you want to see more on the project and lots of other people's finished versions check out Ravelry.