Well, I'm still waiting for the Premiere yarn I ordered, but there's
been a change of plan: the pictured project, which I was hoping to
complete in time to submit to Knitty--by
today!-- has given me no end of headaches. It is far from being
completed, as ripping is unfortunately required. And what do you know,
it's in Premiere, color #5248. In short, the perfect project to post
about here. (And hey, if this CAL does indeed go to September, I should
have time to do another one--if my other yarn ever arrives.) I hope
y'all don't mind that the first few posts about this sleeveless top
won't be real-time; I started the actual knitting about the time the
CAL started up, in mid-February.
However, the original idea germinated awhile ago, almost a year, in fact. I loved the 
Dayflower
Lace stitch pattern in Barbara Walker's 2nd Treasury, and when I
decided to design something using it, the first thing I did was Google
to see if there were any other patterns out there--first, to see how
others might have utilized it, and second, to avoid duplicating someone
else's work. I found a scarf, a skirt, and a sweater,
and I was interested to note that the latter, a V-neck cardigan with
dropped shoulders, avoided any shaping, and thus kept the lace motifs
intact (as did the scarf and skirt patterns).
It has been my experience with other curvy lace stitch patterns that mixing them with different stitch patterns must be done judiciously: part of their beauty comes from the undulations caused by the pull of the increase and decreases, and these are affected by adjacent stitches--or by trying to add shaping. So last spring, when I submitted a pattern idea for an empire waist top incorporating Dayflower Lace to Interweave Knits, I limited the lace mostly to the "skirt" portion of the top, thinking to tie the bodice thematically into the skirt by using faggoting--like that within the lace pattern-- to trim the neckline and armholes.
Needless to say, the pattern
was not accepted, but I still wanted to pursue the idea, so a little
over a month ago, I got out the sketch I had submitted, and started to
think about how I might actually execute what I had drawn. By
the way, this was one of my earlier sketches using Adobe Illustrator,
and while my skills are still fairly rudimentary, one thing this
program makes very easy is copying and pasting design motifs--such as
if you want to communicate how a lace pattern stitch might appear
across an entire garment.
So. Some of the considerations with this top were:
1.
How to create the empire waist shaping. Decreases on several rows, like
waist shaping but more drastic? Or decreases all at once, creating a
gathered effect?
2. What to do for the band under the bust. Simple
stockinette or other pattern stitch? Bind off( or not) and attach to
band, perhaps knitted horizontally to decrease stretch? I wanted this
part of the top to have zero to slightly negative ease, to avoid that
tent look! Use a ribbon or twisted cord to make sure the top fits
closely here? And if so, incorporate eyelet holes into the band, for
threading the ribbon or cord?
3. Bust shaping. If the underbust band
was to have no ease, then there would have to be quite sudden increases
for the bust, either along the sides, or using short rows, or using
increases only in the front, to form a subtle gathered effect (which is
pictured in the sketch).
4. Neckline. I wanted to use some sort of
self-finishing for the armhole and neck edges, but what then to do
about the center neck, which is drawn showing a single lace panel which
is bound off horizontally? I didn't think the plain bound-off edge
would look finished enough, but if I was going to add an edge
finishing, I figured I would probably have to do it to the whole neck
edge, and maybe the armhole edges, for design cohesion. Applied I-cord?
Crochet? The Dayflower Lace pattern has no purl stitches on the right
side, so I was reluctant to introduce ribbing or garter or seed stitch
as an edge treatment.
Gah! What to do when faced with so many decisions?! START KNITTING! Luckily the lower part of this top is simply rounds of lace. I made a gauge swatch, calculated 14 repeats for a lower circumference of 40-ish inches, and I was off.
Edited to add: Apparently Blogger and Typepad do not allow easy cross-posting, but I copied/pasted and that worked just fine. Click here for the original post (from March 15th) and to see more of the Create Along.