Square Neck Camisole
Ravelry page: Square Neck Camisole
The finished top: making the most of some late autumn sun to get a picture - although it’s too cold outside to wear it out there!
This ended up being my longest running WIP to date clocking in at just under 4 months on the needles - although I must admit, the last 2 months of that was down to me procrastinating the armhole and neckline edges. It’s a fingering weight vest top pattern originally published in Norwegian and recently translated into English.
I picked up the yarn to cast on this project back in May during a girls trip to Bath and chose the Knitting for Olive Cotton Merino based on the recommendation of Florence from the handmade by florence Youtube channel who used the KfO Merino for her version. Given that I’m prone to getting very warm in the summer, I opted for the cotton blend version of the yarn. This wasn’t quite my first time knitting with cotton but I did need to adjust a little to how much less springy this yarn is than the sock blend and 100% wool yarns I’m used to.
Overall, I’m very happy with the way this top has turned out although there are definitely a number of small mistakes and things I wish I’d done better or more neatly - I’ve decided to accept the approach of “if someone galloping by on a horse wouldn’t notice, then it’s not an issue”. My tensioning is consistent throughout which hasn’t always been a given in my knitting projects although the unforgiving nature of the cotton means that I do have a looser knit stitch before the next purl stitch which I wasn’t able to correct but at least it looks the same all over so I can call it a feature!
Starting off, I cast on for the size small but after a few rows of the body increases I realised that would be too roomy for me and frogged back to the straps to work up the extra small size instead (and that’s not to mention the number of times I had to frog and restart the straps to get them right!)
After joining the body in the round, I tried on the top to gauge strap length and found them about 2” too long so I carefully placed two lifelines in each strap 18 rows apart and ripped out those rows before doing a rough job of splicing the remaining rows together with a needle and a form of kitchener stitch for ribbing. The second strap went better than the first but neither is perfect - not that anyone would notice without me pointing it out.
I usually prefer to wear high waisted skirts, shorts, and trousers so I opted to do 2 sets of body decreases then bound off once the top hit my waist and I’m so glad I did! It’s going to be a top that I wear a lot…. when the warmer weather eventually rolls around again. When casting it on back in July, I’d anticipated finishing it in time to get a few weeks’ wear before the weather got too autumnal but I very much missed that boat and it’s hat and mitts time instead by now. Oh well, knitting’s definitely a lesson in patience!
Before blocking, I sewed a label into the back neck edge to make sure I always put it on the right way as this pattern has identical stitch counts front and back - the only way to tell the difference is the slight jog in the ribbing at the bottom of the strap where you switch from working the straps up to working the body down from your cast on. A ‘consciously made’ label seemed fitting so that’s what went in and with that, my hand knit camisole was complete.
Despite being happy with the final project, I’m not sure I’ll be casting on another any time soon. There are many other projects I’d rather start and it took so long to work up given the yarn gauge and needle size that it’s a commitment for sure. Instead, it’ll just be a loved piece in my wardrobe come Spring/Summer 2024.
