Knitting for EVERYONE!

Hello everyone! I have had a crazy and super fun week. I flew out to Chicago with my family to visit my cousin and attend her beautiful wedding! It was a ton of fun. Great food, great drinks, dancing, connecting with family, visiting the city of Chicago, and watching my cousin walk down the aisle at the Art Institute of Chicago… how could it not have been amazing?

I did, however, get caught up in all of the fun and not blog… oops.. I will get better with time. You know, learn time management and all that good stuff.

This time I want to share with you an awesome knitting project I just finished that I am really excited about! It’s a very simple and fast tunic tank top that looks great and can fit almost all sizes.

I love knitting projects where I see results fast. I have the tendency to get bored with projects where I feel like I am not getting anywhere, so this shirt is perfect because it uses large needles and before you know it you’re almost done!

I spent the plane ride back to Seattle knitting and when I realized I was ready to bind off we were a few minutes from the ground and I raced the plane to see if I could get it done before touching ground. (I won by 10 seconds!)

I just picked a yarn that I liked that was easy to work with and a nice color. No fancy yarns with the frills or changing in size or extra fuzz, just nice, soft, and straight forward.

Needles are size 15 US (10 mm) circle (long circle, enough to fit 96 stiches)

Cast on 48 stiches

It’s ribbed all the way down so knit one, purl one all the way to the end of the row and when you turn it around for the next row it’ll be knit, purl again (knitting the knits and purling the purls).

The pattern I used had me work 26 rows, but I think that leaves pretty big arm holes so for my next one (oh, yes I will be making more in different colors!) I will try 20 instead.

When you finish that, put a scrap piece of yarn through the holes to keep the stiches live.

That is the top half of the front. To start the top half of the back, go to the cast on edge and pick up the first twelve stiches. Then cast on 24 stiches, and pick up the last 12 stiches.

I originally made the mistake of picking up the last 12 stiches in the wrong direction so there was a little twist in the shoulder so I undid the work and started again, but now that I think of it… that might have been a cool design.

Anyway, now you’re going to do the exact same thing on the back side as you did on the front side, knit and purl each row down to 26 rows so that it continues in the ribbed pattern.

Once you have 26 rows on either side, pick up the live rows from the front side and work in a circle knitting and purling the same pattern as the top half onto the bottom half.

I just kept going until it was as long as I wanted it then binded off.

The real mistake that I made that I will make sure not to do again is that I did a regular bind off (I’m assuming it’s the regular one because it was the first one I learned and what I use for nearly everything). That bind off is not stretchy so the bottom of my shirt is stiff while the rest is really stretchy. There are a lot of different bind off options to choose from that are stretchy, so if you try something and it works, let me know! I’d love to hear what works. I will be experimenting with my next one.

Let me know how it goes!