Table of Contents

• The Pattern
• The Yarn
• The Swatch
• The Knitting Process
• New Techniques
• Final Thoughts

The Pattern

Given that I spend so much time at home, I figured that it would be a pretty good idea to make some knitted loungewear for myself. I really wanted to make the Atlantis Set by Ullen Knitwear, but, given that we were heading into summer at the time, I decided it would be better to make something a little more seasonally-appropriate. Enter: the Flutter Buttset (made up of the Flutter Buttshirt and Flutter Buttshorts) by Jessie Maed Designs. I thought this set would be perfect for lounging around the house on a warmer day- I was thinking like pyjamas, but a little more, ‘Yes, I got dressed this morning’, if you know what I mean?

While I did make both the top and shorts for this set, this post will only be about the Flutter Buttshirt. That’s because I ran into real problems with the shorts (they were SO BIG AND I DON’T KNOW WHY!!!!), so I had to frog them! I plan to come back to them and try to get the same effect with a slightly different pattern in the future- I’ll definitely make a post about that when I get around to it. For now, though, let’s focus on the top.

The Yarn

I opted to use Scheepjes Bamboo Soft yarn for my Flutter Buttshirt. It’s a 4-ply, 50% rayon (from bamboo)/50% cotton blend, which I thought would be nice and cool for warm summer days. I followed the advice given in the pattern and, because I was using a bamboo/cotton yarn, I made a size down from what my measurements suggested, to account for lack of memory in the fibre- honestly, I’m glad I did! Even with my slightly tighter gauge, the smaller size fit perfectly from the get-go (which makes me a little worried about it loosening too much overtime, but what can you do?).

I chose the shade 254 Mighty Spruce, which is a deep, jewel-toned, teal. I admit that it’s probably quite a wintery colour for a summer set, but I just loved it so much! While I usually buy most of my wool from Wool Warehouse, I actually got this yarn from LoveCrafts, because it was on sale there (are you noticing a theme in my yarn purchases? We stan a sale here at Gemma At Home).

The yarn is pretty splitty. It wasn’t unbearable, but it was definitely something that I noticed. What I found more annoying, though, was the number of knots in the balls. Because this pattern is knit at such a loose gauge (more on that later!), you really don’t want to be sewing in extra ends in the middle of your top. I ended up wasting quite a bit of yarn making sure all the ends were left at the sides of the top, so that, when sewn in, they would be hidden by my arms/the sleeves. Other than those two little niggles, I quite liked this yarn: it’s smooth, soft and drapey- everything I wanted/needed it to be for this project!

The Swatch

I made a couple of swatches for this top. On the recommended 5mm needles, my gauge was a little tighter, but I figured that would be okay because a) my yarn choice meant I could afford to make a slightly smaller top and b) I liked the idea of a less see-through fabric, so I just went with it.

Update on my feelings re: swatching: it still makes me so mad. That’s all.

This pattern is knit at an incredibly loose gauge. Like, my gauge was slightly tighter than the required gauge, but it was still super loose- I mean, you’re knitting 4-ply yarn on 5mm needles, so I guess it’s kind of inevitable, but still!? While that loose gauge does add to the drape of the finished garment, I can’t help but feel that it’s just a bit too loose- I’m not crazy about how see-through my finished top is. I’ve found that I can get away with it if I wear a nude vest top underneath (I’m wearing one in the above photo, so you can’t really see how sheer it is! This is a family-friendly site, after all), but the additional layer kind of defeats the point of a summer lounge top to me. I’m a little disappointed 🙁 .

Anyway, with the swatch made, blocked and measured (thank GOODNESS), I moved on to making the top, blissfully unaware of the see-through problems that were to befall me. Sigh.

The Knitting Process

I will say that, particularly compared to the slightly more complicated Daphne Top that I made last time, this pattern is super simple, which I loved. There’s the tiniest bit of shaping around the shoulders, and, of course, the ruffle hems, but most of the top is just knitting around in a circle. In fact, even the shaping and the ruffle hems are much simpler to do than they seem, which made the whole thing even more fun.

I only had a couple of (minor) issues that popped up throughout the process:

• I cast off too tightly around the neck

Everybody warns you to cast off loosely and I always think, ‘Hahah, fools! Of course I will!’. Long story short, I was the fool. I could not get my head through the neck hole and I thought all was lost. Luckily, I hadn’t sewn in my ends yet, so I just unravelled my cast-off edge and tried again. Annoyingly, that meant I also had to re-join the shoulders, but it was a small sacrifice to make for a top that I could actually wear. I ended up using Jeny’s Surprisingly Stretchy Bind-Off for the neck, to make super sure that it was stretchy enough!

• The seams where the sleeves joined the body were super messy

I think this was another problem caused by the loose gauge. All around the sleeves just looked really loopy and uneven, which I (obviously) wasn’t happy with. Ultimately, I found that I could get a neater finish by a) using smaller (4mm) needles to pick up the stitches and b) picking them up through 2 loops, instead of 1. I continued using the 4mm needles for the next 2 rounds of the sleeves, then switched to the recommended 5mm needles for the rest. When it came to casting off the ruffled hems, I opted to use this Stretchy Bind-Off (k1, k2tog tbl). I found this didn’t pull the ruffles too tight, but looked pretty at the same time.

New Techniques

There weren’t as many new techniques for me in this pattern, compared to the Daphne Top, but I still managed to learn a few new things, while also practising some techniques that I have already met (previously encountered techniques are marked with an *):

• Long tail cast on*

• M1L (make 1 left)
• German short rows*
• 3-needle bind off
• Picking up stitches*
• Jeny’s Surprisingly Stretchy Bind-Off
• Stretchy Bind-Off

Final Thoughts

I think this top is SO pretty. I would wear it all the time if I could. However, I cannot. I cannot because it is so SHEER. I can’t decide if it’s the yarn I chose, or if I am simply hyper conscious of wearing something so see-through, but I can really only wear this with a nude vest top underneath, which is a) a bit of a drag and b) annoying seeing as I intended to wear this in summer. If I were a more experienced garment-knitter, I would rework this pattern to use smaller needles, in an attempt to make it less see-through, because I LOVE the style so much! Alas, I am not an experienced garment-knitter. Sigh.

On the bright side, the process for this one was relatively quick and painless, which has given me a boost of confidence for the rest of my knitting journey! If you’ve made this top, though, I’d love to hear what you thought of it- was yours see-through too?

If you're interested...

You can purchase the Flutter Buttshirt pattern here.

You can find the project page on Ravelry for my Flutter Buttshirt here. 

Gemma

xxx

Long story short, I don’t have much experience when it comes to knitting clothes! Bar the crumbs of knowledge gleaned from making a couple of Weasley Jumpers and a single, fateful pair of socks (I was horrified when I (rather belatedly, I admit) realised I had to do the whole process twice), I really don’t know much at all about knitting clothes. Which, given the huge volume of beautiful knitwear patterns in circulation at the moment, seems like a complete oversight on my part. Because of this, I’ve decided to branch out with my knitting and learn how to knit clothes that I can actually wear in my everyday life!

One thing to note here: as I mentioned earlier, my mum is a super experienced knitter- I’m really lucky that I have her expertise to rely upon throughout this process. If you do not have a knitter friend/relative who can help you with yarn suggestions and understanding patterns, don’t worry! There are plenty of online resources that can help you: check out the forums on Ravelry, or head to YouTube for video demonstrations of specific techniques.

Now that you’ve heard my knitting story and know what my aim for this project is, let’s get into this instalment of Project Knitwear and look at my first garment knit. I actually made this top around this time last year, but I wanted to start this series at the very beginning of my knitwear journey!

Table of Contents

• The Pattern
• The Yarn
• The Swatch
• The Knitting Process
• New Techniques
• Final Thoughts

The Pattern

For my first proper garment knit, I decided to make the Daphne Top by Friday Knits. It was, perhaps, a slightly ambitious choice, but it worked out fine in the end (shoutout to my mum, for putting up with my e n d l e s s questions and mini-panics). The Daphne Top is inspired by the Regency era-style fashion in the Netflix series, Bridgerton, which, if you’ve been reading the blog for a while now, you will know that I am huge fan of! I came across this pattern on Instagram (you can follow @fridayknits here, if you’re interested in seeing more patterns from them!) and immediately fell in love. I mean, it’s just so pretty! Anyway, after a little persuading from my mum, I bit the bullet and purchased the pattern. Step one, done!

The Yarn

As soon as I saw this top, I knew I wanted to make it in a pale purple shade. Funnily enough, Friday Knits has since released a dress version of the top, with the sample made in purple, which made me feel very validated. Anyway, I like to think that I just like the colour, but I have a feeling my inner Bridgerton fangirl just wanted to match Daphne’s post-marriage colour scheme. Can you blame me? Daphne looked great in purple.

I was on the fence about which yarn to use- I have a real aversion to yarns that aren’t… smooth? Which I feel is actually a super blasphemous thing to say in the knitting community, because wool is supposed to be, well, woolly, but if I can find a suitable yarn with a soft and smooth feel, I will always choose it. Having said that, I also didn’t want to spend loads of money on the yarn, given that this project could end up tossed aside in frustration! In the end, after plenty of deliberation and lots more advice from my mum, I decided to use DROPS Merino Extra Fine, which is a DK weight, 100% wool yarn- it’s actually one of the suggested yarns for the pattern. Having used the yarn, I can say that I really liked it. I’ve seen lots of comments saying that finished garments made with it lose their shape when washed, but I haven’t noticed that with this project. It was a little bit splitty and there were a few knots, but I’ve had much worse!

I opted to use the colour way 36 (Amethyst), to get that pale purple shade I wanted. I purchased my yarn from Wool Warehouse and (I believe?) it was on sale at the time (DROPS often is!). I followed the pattern for the Medium size and bought 9 balls of yarn, but I did have about 1 1/2 balls leftover, even though I added quite a bit of length to the pattern in a few areas (more on that later), so I could probably have gotten away with buying 8 balls.

The Swatch

Is it too soon to say that I despise swatching? This was my first ever gauge swatch and I hated every minute of it. I am beginning to understand why younger Gemma preferred making tiny, swatch-less toys. Ah, those were the days. Unfortunately, swatching is necessary to ensure knitted clothes fit as intended, so swatch I did. Luckily, my mum is well-versed in making swatches, so had all the helpful equipment (wool wash, foam boards & swatching pins) at the ready. On the bright side, my swatch met the required gauge on the first go (looking back, I don’t know what I was complaining about? I recently did about 8 different swatches for a single project and I am MAD at my past self for being so angsty with this single swatch).

The Knitting Process

Finally, I was on to the actual knitting! As I mentioned earlier, I made the size Medium and, to meet gauge, I worked on the suggested 3.75mm needles.

Truthfully, I did find this project quite difficult. A large part of that was caused by my inexperience at reading patterns, so having my mum close by to help was invaluable. The other part of this pattern that I struggled with was the fit. I know, I know- I blame myself for trying to make something fitted so early on in my knitting journey! I did end up making a few adjustments for my top (with varying degrees of success):

• Increased length for the bust

The pattern clearly explains how to do this, which was super helpful because I think it is designed for someone with a much smaller bust than me! I ended up doing about 9cm, instead of 6.5cm, for my bust, but I think I should have done a little bit more- the I-cord detail doesn’t quite sit in the right place on me, I don’t think.

• Shortened length of the straps

I made my straps 1cm shorter than the pattern suggested, but I did still have issues with the sleeves falling off my shoulders (something I have noticed other knitters have struggled with when making this pattern too). I have attempted to prevent this from happening quite so much by threading some 3mm elastic ribbon into the I-cord straps. You can see the elastic from the inside, but not the outside, so I don’t mind it at all. I think that, if I were to make this top again, given that the shorter straps didn’t do much to prevent the slipping, I would leave the straps at the longer, suggested length, which might help the top fit better around my bust. I also wonder if attaching the straps further in (i.e. closer to the centre of both the back and front?) would help? If I made this top again, I’d be tempted to try that, because the whole slippy-sleeve thing is really annoying. The back is pretty wide/open anyway, so I think it could work!

• Lengthened sleeves

After knitting up the sleeves, I felt like they finished at a slightly odd point on my arms, so I lengthened them a little. I’m much happier with them now!

New Techniques

While this project was quite challenging, that did mean that I learnt loads of new techniques to flesh out my knitting arsenal with, including:

• Long tail cast on
• Provisional cast on
• I-cord straps
• Applied I-cord
• German short rows
• Picking up stitches
• Seaming hems

Quick note here: I know it’s a bit soon to say but… I think I might be a German Short Row Girlie?? Once I got the hang of them, I really enjoyed knitting them up. It was so cool seeing the shape of the top develop with each row!

Final Thoughts

First up, I am SO proud of myself for making this top! It was definitely on the more challenging side (considering my abilities), but I ended up with a super neat, pretty top. For the first project in this series, I think it was super successful!

I feel that my finished garment could have done with a few more adjustments- most notably increased length in the bust. Having said that, I find this top much easier to wear after adding the elastic to the sleeves, which don’t fall down so much now, so I’m happy!

I hope you liked this first instalment of my Project Knitwear series! Thanks for reading 🙂

If you're interested...

You can buy the Daphne Top pattern here.

You can see the project page on Ravelry for my Daphne Top here.

Gemma

xxx