Add Some Lace to Your Summer Knitting

I haven’t knit a single top this summer but that doesn’t stop me from looking at a lot of them and wanting to knit them.

The Lexa Top from Hanna Maciejewska is a sort of boxy top with lace detailing across the boatneck and down the short sleeves. It’s worked in the round from the top down and uses short row shaping for a better fit around the neck and shoulders.

The alpaca-silk-linen yarn used in the sample is gorgeous, but whatever fingering yarn you have on hand would be great, too.

It’s available in 10 sizes up to a 65 inch chest measurement, and is available in English, German and Polish. I can only find it on Ravelry, where it costs $7.

[Photo: Hanna Maciejewska.]

Next Pattern:

If you’re looking for a fun project to play with brioche knitting, check out the My Buddy knitting pattern/recipe from Casuarinagirl on Ravelry.

This project doesn’t include a brioche tutorial, so it’s good to know the basics, including how to increase and decrease, but you can always practice on a swatch before you start the project if you want.

The design is meant to be flexible for the yarn you have and what size and shape of project you want to make, from a skinny neck scarf to a asymmetrical triangle or a more classic triangular shape.

The shape you end up with will depend on how often you increase (and then decrease on the other side). The pattern mentions increasing every fourth, fifth or six row (and the one shown increases and decreases every sixth row) but you can do it even more or less often depending on the shape you’re looking for an how much yarn you want to use.

You can work to whatever depth you would like, or use almost half of the yarn you have set aside for the project and begin decreasing.

When it comes to yarn, she used three strands of yarn held together to make a super fluffy shawl, but you can work it with whatever yarn and needles you like to make a wrap that’s all your own.

If you are new to brioche (or to increasing and decreasing in brioche) it might be a good idea to make a little scarf or head wrap first before diving in to the bigger pattern, just so you’re more comfortable with the technique. Or just give it a go; nothing about brioche knitting is that difficult. (But you might want to use a lifeline because I find brioche hard to rip out or fix mistakes in properly.)

You can grab the free pattern for the Buddy Wrap on Ravelry.

[Photo: Casuarinagirl]

Next Pattern:

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