Knitting: Alyce Tee by Joan McGowan-Michael

On 21 May 2016 I cast on the stitches to knit my Alyce Tee. I had been looking at the pattern designed by Joan McGowan-Michael for a while already. I had also decided which yarn I was going to use for it. But then the task arose to find the yarn. I had bought it a couple of years ago with the intention to make some summer tops with it but due to moving internationally and such had not gotten round to doing that yet. I had an idea of where it could be, but that meant digging a bit into my storage area, which I am not a big fan of. So I postponed a little.

To the right you see the design of Joan McGowan-Michael. Here is a link to the page on her website Alyce - White Lies Designs
And here is a link to the ravelry page of the same design: Alyce - Ravelry

I totally fell in love with the design once I had run into it. But then, as most of the design of Joan, this Tee is just gorgeous. I have knit quite a few of the designs of Joan in the meantime and she does write out the patterns really well and they are very easy to follow. Joan is one of my favourite designers. Actually one of her designs was the reason I picked up knitting again 12 years ago after having had a break of about 18 years.

The yarn that I decided to use for this project is from Schachenmayr Nomotta. It is a yarn that is in the meantime unfortunately discontinued. It is Cotton Linen Stripes and it knits up so nicely. I just love it. I only have it stashed 2 times. Once in violet - which I am using for this project - and once in blue. The blue will be for another summer project which is also a design by Joan. You can see a picture of the yarn on the left.

On the right you see the beginning of my knitting, which is after 1 full round of the pattern repeat. It is very easy to knit this leaf pattern.

When I started knitting the pattern I simply followed the pattern without too much thought as I wanted this top finished really fast. But while knitting certain parts, I realised too late how they would have been better knit up differently. The lace ladder pattern is knit separately from a certain point, but I would have preferred it if it had been knit with short rows continuously together with the shaping of the front armholes. The way it is now makes it really hard to sew the pieces together from the front arm hole shaping and the lace and ladder pattern together as the lace and ladder pattern contains many more stitches than the armhole shaping. It would require quite a bit of calculating and such, but it certainly can be done and would make it look nicer and be easier to connect the 2 parts. Now it starts to pull a bit and leave a hole where the two parts are separated.





After sewing it together it doesn't look too bad, but I still do not like the way it crumbles together more than I prefer. Especially on my right side. I certainly do like the top and am quite happy with having made it. The yarn feels very comfortable, so I'm sure this wil lend up being one of my favourite tops. The lace knitting makes it very suitable for summer.

Here you see the finished garment front and back. I expect it to look even better after blocking, but I really wanted to show the pictures of my top.

I hope you have enjoyed my ramblings. Feel free to comment or ask a question. I'd love to hear from you.

Have a wonderful day!