Knitting

Free Patterns, Tutorials and Project Ideas

Lace Weight Top Knitting Pattern

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I feel like the most important thing in the summer is keeping cool. I live in the southern United States and it’s hot all the time in the summer months, so having clothing that is cool and lightweight is really important.

Using fine or superfine yarn is a great way to make a summer garment that isn’t too heavy to wear. Or, in the case of the Trilo Tee from Sachiko Burgin, lace weight yarn. Yes, that’s 0 on the standard yarn weight scale, but don’t be intimidated. The pattern uses size 5 and 7 US knitting needles and calls for a gauge of 20 stitches to 4 inches, which isn’t too terrible.

Also, the pattern is mostly stockinette stitch, with a bit of lace at the bottom edges, so it’s not too difficult to deal with this tiny yarn. It does, however, make a garment that is translucent, so plan for that when you choose yarn and what to wear underneath.

The pattern comes in nine sizes, ranging in chest measurement from 35.25 to 70.5 inches. It’s worked in the round from the bottom up, with the only seam happening at the underarms. It’s meant to be cropped and has short sleeves, but of course you can make the garment longer if you like.

As written, the smallest size uses less than 500 yards of yarn. It’s recommended to use a mohair blend yarn for extra fuzziness, but if you’re knitting the top to wear during the summer you might not want the extra warmth so any kind of lace weight yarn will do. Maybe you can knit it twice and have tops you can wear all yarn long! There are some silk and bamboo options shown in the project gallery for this pattern, so be sure to check those out if you’re thinking of using other fibers.

You can get a copy of this pattern for yourself on Ravelry.

[Photo: Sachiko Burgin]

Comments

  1. I live in England, I saw this beautuful jumper to knit, but very frustating I cannot see ir get the pattern

  2. Martina tetenburg. Type ‘trilo top’ into the search on ravelry. I’ve just found it and purchased it that way and I’m in the uk.

Have you read?

Knit a Leopard Print Shawl and Learn about Yarn Substitution

When I was looking around for free knitting patterns to share recently, I came across this fun leopard print wrap from Yarnspirations. 

This fun bulky wrap gives you tons of practice with instarsia and makes a bold statement while keeping you warm. It’s rated for intermediate knitters and the design is charted but pretty easy to follow. And it’s only 50 rows and worked in bulky yarn, so it wouldn’t even take that long to knit. (You can grab the free pattern from Yarnspirations.)

So what’s the problem? The yarn that the pattern calls for has been discontinued, and it’s not a yarn that a substitute for immediately springs to mind. 

The original yarn was Patons Alpaca Blend, a single ply bulky yarn that was a combination of acrylic, superwash wool, nylon and alpaca. 

My first thought was Lion Brand Hue + Me, which is an acrylic and wool blend, with two plies instead of a single. It looks like it has the colors you would need to make this fun shawl. 

But as I was thinking about it, I thought this would be a good opportunity to introduce you to YarnSub if you don’t already know about it. This website is a giant database of yarn that can consider the qualities of the yarn you want to substitute and offer potential substitutions. 

It’s not only thinking about yarn weight, like I was, but also fiber content, number of plies, gauge and even the difference in yardage between one ball and another. It even looks at the price and can be filtered by your price range or preferences about fiber content (if, say, you’re sensitive or allergic to wool, for example, or don’t want to you acrylic). 

When I plugged in Alpaca Blend, it gave me a lot of different options, though many of them were self-striping or multicolored, which wouldn’t work for this project, and I don’t see a way to filter for solid colors only. 

Still, it’s a good tool to give you some ideas you might not know about or might have forgotten about, and it tells you how the new yarn is similar to the old one and how it differs, allowing you to make smarter choices when substituting yarns. 

[Photo: Yarnspirations]