Last summer I made another The Little Wolf Knits’ Twisted Tea Shirt, with a touch of Sea Glass Tee-esque 1×1 alternating colourwork.
Much of the yarn I used for my tee was salvaged from another project. A year prior I tried to use my excessive collection of leftover fingering yarn to make a colourful Flax Light by Tin Can Knits. I didn’t like how it turned out, so instead of letting the yarn go to waste on something I wasn’t going to wear, I saved the yarn for my Twisted Tea Shirt instead. It turned out beautifully, except for the ribbed bottom hem, which seemed to have been cursed.
First, I made the ribbing too short, and it bulged out strangely from my body when I wore the shirt. On my second attempt, I committed a cardinal knitting sin of ribbing with a variegated yarn, making it look all muddy, as the shifting colours camouflaged the stitch definition.
You’d think “third time’s the charm,” but no. On attempt number three I went back in with this very pretty, very expensive, lavender cashmere yarn from Copenhagen. I soon learned the hard way that cashmere has very little elasticity and will snap if you so much as look at it funny.
After rage-quitting for a few months, last week I decided I was ready to get back in the saddle. This top was too pretty not to wear, and with all that trial and error behind me, I knew how to finally save it.
With a mini-skein of superwash merino, I finally made the perfect bottom hem. I’m getting really, begrudgingly, good at sewing bind-offs now.