My next big design project

I love charity shop finds. Over the years I’ve bought Sisley and Coast dresses, an Armani top, Fly London shoes and all for less than a £10 each. One of my favourite finds, though, is a Comme Ca crossover T-shirt. I wear it a lot, and this means it’s fast wearing out. The seams have started to fray, and while at the moment it’s fixable, it’s a timely reminder that my beloved top isn’t going to last forever. So I’m thinking of making a replacement.

The top in question. It looks pretty simple to reconstruct.
(Famous last words ..!)

 I’ve never made a crossover top before, but I’m assuming it’s much like a cardigan. That said, I’ve never made one of those either. It can’t be that hard, though. I’m planning to just copy the dimensions and construction of the top I’ve got - really just take some measurements, knit a gauge square, do the maths and start knitting. This is generally my take on design - I don't go in for all that sketching things out on graph paper. It's worked for me so far.

I want to do it in Rico Essentials merino DK, in a nice chocolate brown with a cream trim. Time to go shopping, methinks.

Patriot games

The stripes are shaping up well.

With Liz II hitting 60 years on the throne, England doing well in Euro2012 and the London Olympics fast approaching, it’s surely time to get patriotic. So I’ve designed a red-white-and-blue iPhone cover.

This striped cover is crocheted in double knit cotton. It’s double crochet throughout, but going only through the back loop. This creates a stretchy fabric that’s crochet’s equivalent of ribbing.


Stripey fabrics, whether knitted or crocheted, are a bit of a pain in the backside (that’s a technical term). Not only is there all that swapping of yarns, there’s a whole lot of ends to weave in when you’ve finished, and let’s be honest, none of us like weaving in ends. The yarn swapping can’t be helped. Unless you get a self-striping yarn, which, quite frankly, is cheating. The plethora of ends, however, can be.

The strands running along the edge
of the fabric can be disguised with a border.
Take care not to tangle the yarns - untangling
can get annoying.

When you do Fair Isle knitting, you don’t cut the yarn every time you change colour - that would be silly. Just think of all that weaving in. On second thoughts, don’t. So, I asked myself, why cut it every time I change colour with stripes? I can just keep all the yarns attached and when I need to bring a new colour into play, run the yarn along the edge of the material. And it works. When you take up a new yarn, just give it a bit of a tug to keep the crochet nice and tight, making sure not to pull too hard so the fabric doesn’t pucker, then yarn over and pull through the loops on the hook. Simple.

It leaves strands of the yarns along the edge, but these can be disguised at the sewing up stage or if you create a border. With the iPhone cover I did a border of one row of double crochet in each colour, and hid the strands behind this.

The Go Team GB iPhone cover is available on my Folksy store for £10 (plus p&p), while the pattern can be bought from Ravelry, Folksy or by emailing me, for £2.50. A colour PDF will be sent via email.

The finished item in use.