Heather's Shapely Tank I'm stranding a dark blue sport weight Euroflax yarn with Plymouth's Fantasy Naturale Tropical Seas to make a tank top with bust darts for a G cup. The gauge swatch made it through the laundry, and I just finished writing out the pattern. I made a lot of changes to the shapely tank when I made it. I tossed all the numbers and wrote up the pattern to my gauge and my shape. I used a different kind of bust short-rowing. I changed the underarm and armhole shaping because the original design didn't completely cover my bra. The neck was beautiful as it was (although I finished it differently), and the short rows at the hem are intact. Many people would have you knit to your full bust measurement, but my shoulders swim if I do that. Most other places, I'm a lot smaller than my full bust, and so I get a better fit if I ignore the bust measurement and go with something a little bigger than my band size. For my Shapely Tank, I basically knitted the size 41 (with modifications at hips and bust to accommodate my girth there) because a size 41 fits my torso and shoulders. My full bust is 46, and I increase to that (or a little less) just before the bust and then decrease just after. I'm only my full bust measure for an inch or so, and so there's no reason the whole sweater should be made to handle my hyperactive bosom.

Copyright © 2004 by Heather Madrone. All rights reserved.