While you wouldn’t really think it with the recent weather here in the UK, things did start to brighten up for a while and it got me thinking that I needed to extend the summer offerings in my wardrobe, particularly for work. While my office dress code is smart-casual, I always like to feel well put-together and my go-to is a top tucked into high waisted trousers. The problem I have it that I just don’t own enough short sleeved tops! As part of my wider thinking around my wardrobe and allowing my personal style to evolve with me, I’ve been planning some new additions and one of the things I was looking to make was a short sleeved cotton knit top.
I thought about designing my own pattern, but when I was home recovering from an injury I had plenty of time to knit, but not much capacity to exercise my brain power and work out my own maths. Instead, I took to Ravelry and found the perfect pattern to fit my brief – the Mysa Top by Hooked on Tilly.
The Mysa Top is a top-down, raglan pattern which I feel lends itself nicely to customisation. I worked up the size S, but if I were to knit it again I’d probably go down to the XS, just for my preferred fit. I would love to see some additional sizes in the pattern to be more inclusive, as that’s something that I feel is really important and something that I’m working to do for my own patterns, but its construction is fairly simple so I’d expect you could grade up if you’ve got some knitting experience.
I’m an absolute sucker for stockinette knit in the round, because it works up so quickly, so I really enjoyed being able to mindlessly knit on this pattern while still being able to rest.
In order to fit my brief, and to address the slightly-too-large-fit of the size I chose to knit, I made a couple of mods to the pattern.
The first was to forego the sleeve knitting, and instead cast off where the sleeves and body were separated. I just did this because when I tried the top on (always try on knits as you go, whenever you can!), the sleeves felt like they were the perfect length for me, and not too dissimilar to where they fall in Hooked on Tilly’s pictures. I really love the cast off suggested in this pattern, which uses a crochet hook and chain bind off, as the result lays really flat and neat.
The second modification was to make the top easier to tuck in, as that was always my intended way to wear it. Once the top was the length I was happy with, where I felt it would tuck in to my high waisted trousers and have a little extra material to drape over, I knit a decrease round. I then worked 1×1 rib until I ran out of yarn, to use up the 250g I had and to make sure there was plenty to tuck in and keep the top secure.
Generally, I’m really happy with how the Mysa Top turned out and I enjoyed the knit. As I say, I think the size S was a little larger than I needed, but it’s definitely not a deal-breaker for the garment!