My First Pattern!

This April, my mother-in-law came to see us and meet her first grandchild. Some crafting was expected, naturally. She came with a nice asymmetric poncho on her needles and with some yarn she got from her neighbour, hoping I could turn this into a tunic for her daughter. I'm always ready for a knitting challenge! There really wasn't much yarn, some 200g, no label and I only later found out this is what they call boucle. The idea was: something lacy, large needles and loose fit!

So I started with a lacy part, very simple and reversible, knit on straight needles, and after determining that it wouldn't take up much yarn if I have this as upper part of the tunic, repeated the process, put those two rectangles on a circular needle and continued stockinette in the round until there was a decent length to it.

In the end it turned into something rather interesting! Stripy, black, white and grey tunic which is reversible, gentle shaping, plus enough yarn left for a matching scarf! The reason why I'm even sharing a pattern this simple is that it can be so easily changed in many ways to meet different needs and gauges.

There are only two short seams necessary at the shoulders and if done neatly, the result becomes reversible. One could also make two seams under the arms like I did, but these are quite discreet anyway. The mesh part can be just until underarms or longer, but it's easier not to do it in the round. You don't even need the stockinette part and all of this as well as the final length you can decide on the way.

What you do need to cast on comes down to 2 numbers. Here's some math :) Say you have x stitches in 10cm of the lacy pattern and y cm of desired chest circumference (in my case x was 9 stitches and y was about 100cm). Then you calculate x*y/20 (9*100/20=45), round it up to next even number (46) and add two stitches for the edges - 48 stitches for the front or back for the tunic in the pattern. Easy :)



And the link is here.

Just waiting for the photos from the final destination!