Tank(ed?)

Okay, here is the finished tank top. These photos are particularly bad today, even by regular camera-phone standards. Okay, it's on the (long) list of stuff to buy when I'm employed again.





I do this thing sometimes, especially when I have a beautiful crafting friend who has a different style from me. I fall in love with a different kind of color, or pattern, or fiber, and I acquire that material, whatever and however that may be, and I listen to that fiber and make something very well suited to it's nature. Then, when it's made, I try it on... and I get that *feeling* where I just know that although I love this item, it really doesn't belong to me in that velveteen rabbit sort of sense. It belongs to itself, or to my friend whose style I'm temporarily emulating, or some movie star or something, but it's just downright not my style and I've got to admit that sometime or other.

Well. I can kind of picture wearing this tank top with a certain linen skirt that I've had the pattern and fabric for since 2001...And that's a whole other crafter's delusionary thinking for another day --

Two halves -- not quite whole

I've finished the second half of my tank top and will be sewing it up soon. Still not sure what I am going to wear this with...



Funny, I hadn't noticed how the brown color sort of pooled in the upper left side there. I guess that will be the back!

Half a tank

Just finished the first half of my summer tank, and it's looking good. I was a little worried that I would run out of yarn, but I finished the first half with about an inch-round ball of yarn to go. With the One-Skein tank as my inspiration, this will seam up the middle of the front and back, so the scoop in the center of this half is the armhole, not the neck.



One more to go!

Summer Tank

I had the good fortune to come across ,ONE SKEIN by Leigh Radford, at the library last week, and saw the cleverly constructed tank top pattern in there. I love how she put the two pieces together with different sides showing and sewed them up the middle. The center seam gives the tank a tunic-like shapeing, and also some visual interest. I'm using this pattern as my inspiration for a summery top with the variegated yarn of the previous post's swatches. Here we have a good bit of the first half completed.



After spending so much time with the size 3 needles and 1x1 rib on Gatsby, the quick knitting on this little top is very satisfying! I'll be back to Gatsby, but am enjoying having another, simpler project too.

I decided to go with the horizontal dash stitch for this piece. Here is a close up of the fabric.



I really like how the intermittent purls call out the random stripes. I started with a few rows of garter stitch at the bottom and will probably add some of that to the neckline, too. I'm thinking to add some cap sleeves, but will pick up stitches and go top-down for that, so don't have to decide for a while yet.