While I was spring cleaning my room the other day, I opened the cupboard which holds my yarn stash. No, I had no intention of spring cleaning this part of my room – I only planned to pet the yarn and keep it back. And as I was doing this, I realized I was wearing an acrylic hand-knit top, made ages ago. And the irony was evident – I was living in mediocre quality yarn (I love acrylic, would never call it inferior) while my softest yarn was locked away in a cupboard, wasting away. That was the time I decided to knit up some of my good yarn and actually wear them. This FO is the first outcome of that decision.

Knit Picks Shine Sport is one of the initial yarn purchases I made. I planned to knit this up into a tee or a shawl, but had kept it stashed away in a corner. Searched on Rav for FOs which people have made using this yarn and Purl Soho’s Cap Sleeve Lattice Top caught my attention. Pattern is free (unplanned bonus!) and a quick glance through it strengthened my resolve. A voice in my head kept repeating “bottom up knitting”, but I ignored it.

A quick swatch confirmed that the yarn and pattern are suitable for each other and thus I cast on. The never ending, mindless stockinette was both a boon and a bane. I loved the mindless knitting when I had to attend work related calls and I could knit away to glory without spending any brain cells on this. At times, the monotonous work got me so bored that I would shove it away for days together. The longer I knit, the longer it felt it would take for me to finish this. I also suspected some negative elves sneaking into my room at night and unraveling all my knitting. How can the tee not be done already!!??

One fine night (after a pulled an all nighter to get this darn thing over with), I was finally done with stockinette section. Compared to this, the lace section was a breeze. I was done in no time.

Thanks to my yarn choice, the lace portion was too long compared to the body, so I had to do some quick fixing there. I folded the extra fabric under the sleeve and stitched it in place. This does not show on the RS at all, so I am all good.

Remember the voice which kept saying “bottom up”? It became stronger when I realized the tee is too long than intended. It was a good 3″ long – have no idea how. End of every day, before I hung up my knitting, I would try the top and ensure it wasn’t longer than I wanted and yet, I ended up with 3 extra inches. Yes, my dear voice, “bottom up” issue it is.

If it was top down, it was as easy as unraveling the cast off end and frogging the 3 inches and casting off again. But this is bottom up. How do you even unravel the cast on edge? I did some quick fixing here too, since I had planned to wear this for my holiday at Yercaud the next day. I folded the extra fabric underneath and stitched it shut using the same yarn. This actually worked well since the thick fabric edge kept the tee in place.

I can’t live with this for sure, so need to figure out a way to fix the length.

Next time I hear my voice say “bottom up”, I am going to listen to it.

I made a lot of mods. Knit this in round to avoid seam, made the neck opening smaller and so on. All details on my Ravelry Project.