Oh My Belle Top ENGLISH (metric)

This pattern is in English only. Knitting vocabulary is UK, and the units are metric.

Belle is summer, chic and classy. She is a girl next door with a twist, and this top is for her.

Oh My Belle Top is a seamless top-down stockinette design. The back and front parts are worked flat until below the armholes, from where it’s joined and worked in the round. The pattern is relatively simple but interprets traditional techniques such as cables and picking up stitches to create folds and seams for a look inspired by the world of sewing. The hems are folded with picot edges and I-cord is used for the bow strands. Get inspired on Instagram on #OhMyBelleTop.

Techniques in the pattern:

Long-tail cast on or your preferred regular cast-on method

Backwards loop cast-on or your preferred one-stranded cast-on method

Picking up stitches from the cast-on edge and side edges

Picking up stitches through a folded cast-on edge

Left/right leaning increases from both the right and wrong sides

Cable with 2 and 3 stitches

I-cord

Find pattern specific tutorials here

What you will need:

Suggested needles are 3 mm circular needles or the needle size that gets you the correct tension.

2,5 mm needles or 0,5 mm smaller than the needles that get you the correct tension. 

1 beginning of round-marker and 1 removable stitch maker.

1 auxiliary needle (AN), same size or smaller than your working needle. This can be a cable needle, double-pointed needle, or spare circular needle.

Suggested yarn:

1 strand of Pure Silk from Yarn by Sanders or similar with a meterage of 400m/100g.

Tension:

26 sts, 36 r = 10x10 cm in stockinette stitch after wash and block.

Size guide:

Circumference: The top is designed with a positive ease of around 5%. This is approx. 2-7 cm for sizes A-E; 3-8 cm for sizes F-I; 4-9 cm for sizes J-M; and 5-10 cm for sizes N-O.

Length: The top is slightly cropped and designed to reach the upper edge of your hips. Measure your torso from 1-2 cm above the collarbones to the upper part of the hips.

This pattern encourages you to combine your actual height and width measurements. You cast on the size indicated by your width measurement and whenever the pattern states length measurements using [ ] you’ll follow the size that corresponds to your desired length. In example, my bust measures 78 cm, but my torso 46 cm, so I’ve cast on size A using the size H lengths.

*NB: If you are not able to measure your torso, you can select the length according to height. The heights in this size chart range widely in order to include short and long torsos. So, I really recommend you take a second to determine your desired length, as the heights in this chart are a bit extreme corresponding to standard height-to-torso proportions. 

Yarn estimates:

(150) 150 (200) 200 (200) 250 (250) 300 (300) 300 (350) 350 (350) 400 (400) grams

Combining sizes? Find your yarn estimate in the chart below by locating your desired circumference in the horizontal bar indicated with ( ) then follow down vertically to your desired length indicated with [ ].