Do you ever just look at a ball of yarn and know exactly what you want it to become? That was my experience when I spotted this ball of Scheepjes Whirl Fine Art in the colour ‘Surrealism’ at Yarn Twisters, one of my beloved local yarn stores.
Something about this yarn just screamed “tank top” to me, and with the warmer months coming our way I wanted to make something I wouldn’t have to wait another season to wear. I found the free Graphite Tank pattern by Universal Yarn online and began plotting.
Rather than having four separate, deliberately placed colours as per the pattern, I decided to approach this with a “see where my yarn takes me” attitude – my preferred method with a self-striping yarn such as this.
This was also one of two projects I had on the go at the same time that included lacework because apparently, I love to suffer. I still consider myself an “advanced beginner” knitter, so keeping up with the multitudinous stitches bore a real challenge. Breaking my concentration became a serious crime in our household. The challenge paid off, though, because I love how the lace trim turned out.
But then tragedy struck when I was blocking it the second time. The back piece turned out to be much shorter than the front, despite the fact I used the same needle sizes throughout. As I was pinning the edges down to be uniform all the way around, a stitch fell out of place in the front, and the lace had begun to unravel. Panicking, I grabbed a scrap piece of yarn and a crochet hook and did my best to repair the damage.
In all, I’m happy with it. Even though the bodice ended up being shorter than I thought it would be, it makes for a cute and summery cropped look.