The lilac camisole

It has been ready for a week or two.

Kriszta (one of the knitting club girls) came across a bag of Rowan 4 ply cotton yarn. Rowan!!! She had the same reaction as I would have. Regardless of the color or the quantity she bought it. She started thinking only later: "OMG Lilac is sooo not my color... what a heck should I do with four ball of fingering weight lilac colored cotton yarn?" She mused at one of our meetings. Of course I jumped "I'll take it, I'll take it off your hands!". So I bought it from her. Of course even if I loved the color, the question of what to do with only four balls of thin cotton yarn remained until the July issue of Fürge Ujjak (it means Busy/Fast Fingers, the one Hungarian craft magazine, it has a considerable section on knitting and crochet) came out and in it there was this camisole. Being me, of course meant considerable rework of the pattern, but the end result turned out fine, I think.

Changes were:
Aside from the necessary recalculating the stitch-count (of course once again, I had a totally different yarn that the pattern had, this time mine was considerably thinner, and I had a very limited amount so I had to be extra careful)...

In the magazine's picture the modell already started to roll... To prevent this I started with four rows of garter stitch.

Then I used five repeats of the lace pattern, instead of the three. I put the ribbing slightly higher to give it a tiny bit more empire line, and also changed the upper edge to make it less like a tube top, more like a tank or a cami.

That also resulted using two and half repeats of lace, instead of the pattern's two.The pattern called for crocheted straps. I first tried Icords, but then thought a little bit wider thing would hide bra straps more. So I took the base of the lace pattern, and added two stitch each side (one for the edge, one garter to prevent rolling) So the strap ended up like:

1. row: knit, knit, yo, knit, k3tog, knit, yo, knit, slip.
2. row: knit, knit, purl 5, knit, slip.

The final step was giving it a crocheted picot edge. I love picot edge, I find it so feminine. This case I thought a crocheted one would give it a more solid hold, and prevent rolling. I would have done it all the way, including the straps, but my yarn wouldn't have been enough, so it only went for the upper edge of the body. At the end I had left about two meters of yarn.

Speaking of the yarn I loved using the Rowan four ply cotton. Unlike many knitters I prefer summers to winters (I actually hate winter, but that is for an other post), and I love wearing cotton and linen clothings. And I don't mind at all knitting those yarns. I loved the cotton-linen in my butterfly tunic, I loved the Rowan All season for the blue pulli, and I loved the four ply for this project. It did NOT SPLIT at all, it was light, and the end project is not too hot either. Great yarn.

Once again, I have to be greatful to Dinara for the pictures. She is so talented. She shot these (along with the wrap cardi pics) in such a hurry, still they turned out great. Thank you.