Pattern Testing the Pinch Me Crop Top

When Chantal came up with the idea of a ribbed tank top with a sweetheart neckline at Knit Night, I was ready to sign up to test it without seeing it. When the Pinch Me Crop Top was done and I saw it on Chantal I was still on board!

Normally the idea of knitting ribbing for an ENTIRE top would be a huge turnoff. And especially doing so with acrylic yarn. Since I don’t have a lot of other commitments at the moment, between summer break and quarantine, I thought I could give it a go.

I originally intended to knit this test in white Lion Brand Feels Like Butta. But this turned into a perfect example of how important it is to do your gauge swatch. The thickness of this yarn is very similar to the Lion Brand Jeans Chantal used for her sample. But as I started my gauge swatch, it became apparent only a few rows in that Feels Like Butta was NOT going to work. The width of the swatch was about double of what it should have been and the ribbing had absolutely no stretch. Not exactly ideal for a top with a considerable amount of negative ease.

Luckily I had a ball of Jeans in my stash from my OML swag bag last year, and was able to get more from a friend. I’ve used Jeans before for Whistle & Wool’s Oxford Tie and it is a fantastic acrylic yarn. It is very soft and doesn’t feel like most acrylic yarns.

Test knits are not supposed to be competitive, aside from being the first one to find Easter eggs when you test for Chantal. But I was feeling very motivated to finish as fast as possible, i.e. first. It was more to do with finding any errors first. Normally I am more of a project knitter – meaning I want to finish items. But I actually really enjoyed the process, the ribbing was surprisingly meditative.

I mentioned above that there is considerable negative ease in this pattern. One of the things that happens when a pattern has negative ease, is that the length of it will decrease when it is actually stretched over your body to be worn. I’ve probably mentioned before that I have a very long torso. To accomodate this I added 1.5 inches to the length of the body, which required 14 g more yarn in the size Medium. As you knit the body of your Pinch Me Crop Top it will look like a very long tube. So before you get ready to do the armholes you’ll want to transfer some stitches to another very long cord, or scrap yarn and actually try it on to see how long it is on you. The length of my top from the bottom to the armpit is 15.5″. When I put it on, this length decreases to 13″. How much it will shorten will depend on how much negative ease the piece has compared to your body. For example, the medium is made for bust sizes of 36-38″. For someone with a 36″ bust it will have less negative ease, therefore the length will change less than it would for someone making the same size garment, but having a 38″ bust.

One of my favourite things about the Pinch Me Crop Top is actually the back. To make space for the arms and give a kind of wide racerback-like look there are double decreases, and in the past few months double decreases have become one of my absolute favourite things! I just love the way they look, and you’ll be seeing them in my own garment designs coming in the next month.

There are a couple things you could do if you’ve worked with some more advanced techniques before. The pattern uses a regular long-tail cast on, which works very well with the top and is easy to do! If you want more stretch, or to have a more invisible cast on edge, you could use a Tubular Cast On. You could also use a Tubular Cast Off/Bind Off for the armpits, which would give them more stretch as well. To be honest I’ve never used the tubular cast off for just sections of a garment before, but I’m sure it’s possible, and would also give you the invisible bind off look!

Summer may be almost half over, but you can definitely still knit this top to wear this season! It took me about a week and a lot of other testers finished immediately after me! Get the Pinch Me Crop Top Pattern from Knitatude on Etsy, Ravelry, or as a kit from Lion Brand!

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