Monday, April 23, 2012

New Pattern: Tide Waters Tank

I have just released my newest knitting design, Tide Waters.  It's a knitters take on the corset, and because it's knit, it hugs your curves with out all the pinching.  Other than the shaping my other two favorite design element of this pattern are the lace panel and the I-cord edging at the neckline.

I started this design back in January.  The thought came to me one day at work, what would it look like to knit a corset.  Not a cinching corset, but a top that was comfortable that skimmed your curves and had the look of a corset with out all the boning and laces.

When I set out to design this pattern I looked at a lot of different types of corsets and how the were constructed.  Where was the boning placed and how much?  How drastic was the waist line decrease?  I even made a pintrest board of all my favorite corsets and designs.  This design process was new to me, and I soon realized that it helped me realize a few things about what I was going to design.

The design took a new direction than I thought it would.  I figured out that the construction of this top was going to be bottom up, with lots of waist and bust shaping and involve a bit of grafting.  This is so different from any of my previous designs and this type of construction, while not new to me, was different than I had originally intended.

The idea for the lace panel came toward the end of the sketching and swatching.  I thought the design needed a little umph.  A little lace in the front would do the trick, and it would be reminiscent of the decorative stomachers of the 1600-1700.  A happy accident followed and as I knit the sample the lace design shaped the fabric of the garment in such a way that it created a point at the hips and a subtle sweetheart neckline.

You can check out this pattern in my Etsy Shop under Tide Waters, or check it out on Ravelry.com just search Tide Waters in the pattern search.


P.S. The shorts in the photos are those purple shorts I sewed a few weeks ago.

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