SoleCrafts: Triple L Knitted tank

I finished my last knitted sweater just as the weather started to warm up so I didn't really feel like starting work on a new sweater. Browsing my local knitting shop In the Loop during one of my regular Friday Sit and Knit groups I found some beautiful cotton yarn with a beautiful feel and a really lovely luster to it. I decided that this would be my next project. I pulled out a couple of skeins of the same dye lot Purple, plus the last two skeins of Green and then decided to throw in a skein of black as well.

Now what can I do with it? I knew that I wanted to make a simple tank top but what knitting stitch could I use utilising the three different colours. I knitted many different swatches of many different stitches before settling on the Triple L Tweed stitch.

The only problem was that this stitch uses up a lot more yarn than just a straight stitch so the yardage I had wasn't going to be enough. I went back and got a second ball of the black and I also got another ball of purple - though from a different dye lot. I figured that using this stitch you wont be able to see the difference in purples so that wouldn't be a problem.

I'd already knitted a swatch in this pattern when I was trying out all the stitches, so I used the gauge from this swatch to draft a pattern and got to work. I was hoping to work this top in the round from the bottom up but this stitch is designed with both knit and purl rows - I tried to figure out how to do it in all knit rows but quickly gave up and knitted it as a front and back instead.

The band is a simple 2 x 2 rib worked in purple, then I went straight into the Triple L Tweed stich. Some shaping was done through the waist and the bust by adding and removing stitiches at the side seams. At the under arm I split each ball of yarn into 2 and worked up each side shaping the armhole and creating a V neckline. I ran out of the first skein of green halfway up to the shoulder and didn't want to use any of the second ball that I would need for the back, so I modified the pattern to be a two colour repeat. Then I ran out of black as well so finished up the front with just purple.

Then I started on the back. As I didn't need as much shaping for the bust at the back I managed to do the entire piece in the three colours.

I sewed the two pieces together at shoulder and side seams and tried it on - I really stuffed something up - It was way too wide - and when I say way to wide I really mean it. I stuffed it back into its bag.

A couple of days later I decided that I couldn't give up on it. Apart from taking it all apart and remaking it - which I really didn't want to do - the only think I could think of was steeking it.

I've never tried steeking anything before so I got on the internet and started researching and after procrastinating or a while decided I just had to go for it.

I put on the walking food and using the longest stitch possible ran a seam down the sides,,,,it worked so I went back and re sewed the seams with a much smaller stitch a couple of time just to make sure. I then went and ran a line of stitch down each side of the seam allowance about 5/8" out where I planned on cutting the fabric, and went over it again and again. I was hoping that I could use my serger to finish off the seams but the serger wasn't cooperating so I just cut it by hand and used an overlock stitch on my machine over and over again. It seems to be holding.