Knitted Crazy Stripes Tee

OK I actually finished this piece a while ago but I never got around to photographing it, but there is no way I was going to leave this piece off my blog - I am so so so so so happy with the way this piece turned out.

Last time I was back in Australia My mother-in-law went though her stash of half used balls of wool from Bendigo Woolen Mills and told me to take anything I like.  Well of course, being me, I wanted all of it.  I tried to restrain myself a little bit and only took about 6 balls, among them were three balls of 4 ply wool in purple, lavender and white.  There were then a couple of 8 ply balls in aqua, red and blue.

I knew exactly what I wanted to make with the 4 ply wool - the Crazy Stripes Tee by Atelier Alfa.

I wasn't entirely sure what size to use - my measurements put me anywhere between a size M and an XL - and that only thing that I didn't like about this pattern is they don't provide any finished measurements for the shoulders - that is usually my go to measurement for figuring out what size to start with.  In the end I decided to go with a size Medium. The shirt is just a bit to big across the shoulders but fits perfectly everywhere else.

This shirt is knitted using many short rows.  I utilised many different methods for turning short rows throughout the shirt, but I never did manage to find a method that worked without a visible glitch.  I don't know how noticeable it really is, but I'm not going to worry about it - it is what it is.

Apart from short rows there wasn't really anything difficult about this pattern - it went together beautifully.  The colours used for each stripe were fairly randomly picked.  I used the darker purple as the dominant colour and then just added in the lavender and white as I felt like it.  Every now and then I added a row of the 8 ply aqua colour just to provide a real pop.  I tried to keep these rows pretty infrequent though as I didn't want the larger 8 ply to affect the gauge too much.

I did change the pattern slightly when it came to the sleeves,  The pattern calls for 3/4 length sleeves, but I have no use for those - if its cold enough to want to put on a wool shirt then I need full length sleeves.  After browsing through the many other photos of this top made by other people I really liked the way the top looked when you extend the stripe pattern into the sleeve, so that's what I did.

The only other minor change I made was to the neck band, cuffs and bottom band.  The pattern called for only 4 rows ribbing and 2 rows stockingette, but as my neckline was quite wide I chose to make a wider neck band and did 6 rows ribbing and 3 rows stockinette.  I used this same band on the cuffs and bottom as well.

Overally I love this top.  The wool is a little on the scratchy side so I do have to wear a long sleeve shirt under it, but I love everything else about it.