Hi guys,
This is my FIRST EVER circular yoke top, using my one of my favourite stitches – the granite stitch – aptly named the Granite Yoke Tee. You can purchase the pattern here, or continue reading for more info + a coupon code!
Find the Lion Brand crochet kit HERE.
About
Did you ever just want to wear something handmade but a heavy sweater didn’t seem appropriate? Like to the office? Out for a nice dinner? That’s why I made this: you can wear this anywhere and style it a million ways. I like wearing mine with high-waisted jeans and a belt, under my overalls, or tucked in to a flowy maxi skirt. You can wear it underneath a cardigan, underneath a blazer, with a skirt, dressed up for work, under overalls for a casual look, you can wear it aaaaany way you want.
It’s just a versatile tee. Simple as that! It’s easy to blend it in with your normal wardrobe.
A little background on why I chose this specific design:
A few months ago, I set out to learn how to crochet a raglan. I had knit them before, both top-down and bottom-up, but had never crocheted one before. I blocked out 1 week to figure out how to make them and how to design my own, and wrote about that entire process in this blog post if you want to take a read.
After I learned about top-down construction, my whole world opened up! Here’s my opinion: I find that knit garments usually look neater and more sophisticated than crochet garments, and top-down construction allows crochet to become elevated to the knit level. Once I learned all I could about raglans, the next thing I really wanted to learn about was a circular yoke construction.
If you’re unfamiliar, the difference between raglans and circular yokes are the placement of the increases.
Raglan construction: Raglans increase at 4 distinct lines that separate the front and back from the sleeves (thick of a typical baseball tee)
Yoke construction: Circular yokes have their increases evenly distributed throughout the yoke until reaching the widest part, and then the yoke separates to the sleeves and body.
Construction
During my research about these constructions, I learned that one of the downfalls of top-down crochet is how visible the seam is from joining rounds unless you work in a spiral. Usually, these types of top-down crochet tops will have a visible line down the center-back where rounds were joined. Depending on the stitch used, they are either really visible or barely visible. (In my Rosebud Raglan, the joins are barely visible because of the texture.)
To avoid that seam, I worked in a spiral! The entire top is crocheted in a spiral, which means the entire top is totally seamless. This is one of my favourite things about this pattern – the back looks just as neat and clean as the front side.
This pattern is also SIZE INCLUSIVE. This is really important to me. I don’t want anyone to feel they are excluded from my designs because of their body measurements. I designed this to fit a 28″ bust up to a 62″ bust (or XS to 5X). All of my patterns from 2019 and onward are size inclusive and always will be.
Ps. It won’t be skin tight, I promise! I am wearing one size down in the photos with the orange top (LOL) because I made my finished top 2 inches too small, so I made that sample size into the size XS. I did however wear it anyways in photos because I didn’t have anyone to model this size for me, nor did I want to make a brand new one! Sue me! :p It will be comfortable for the size you make. I later made another sample using the grey and it fits comfortably!
To make this top, you will make a foundation chain, sl st into the first st to join the round, and then work the granite stitch in a spiral until the increase round. The end of your round is marked by a stitch marker, which will be placed in either a chsp or a sc depending if the round is an odd or even numbered round. There are only 4 increase rounds (and XS only has 3), and then the joining round. All the rest is working a simple stitch in a simple spiral. You don’t even need a stitch marker for the entirety of the body – you can just make it as long as you want and stop when you’re happy with the length.
Definitely a Netflix binge-worthy project!
Yarn
After designing my Grand Arches Cardi, I had 4 skeins of Beautiful You leftover. I turned those skeins into this cute top! Beautiful You is a 100% acrylic sport-weight yarn. It’s very smooth and has this really nice shine to it that I personally love.
I did an entire blog post on Beautiful You yarn, and you can read about it here!
The details:
You will need 3 (4, 4, 5, 6) (6, 7, 8, 8) skeins Lion Brand Beautiful You for sizes XS (S, M, L, XL) (2X, 3X, 4X, 5X).
or 848 (1062, 1252, 1410, 1599) (1839, 2021, 2247, 2360) yds of similar category 2, sport weight 100% acrylic yarn that matches gauge
You can order your skeins here! The colours used in this blog post are Porcini (the orange) and Glacier Grey.
You can find the crochet kit (yarn + pattern) here!
I hope you love it as much as I do! I would be so honoured if you’d favourite it on Ravelry or add it to your queue. <3
Thanks so much for reading!
Pick up your skeins here! 🙂
You can find the pattern in these places:
On my website here.
On Ravelry here.
On Etsy here.
In the Lion Brand crochet kit here.
(Use the code “PATTERN10” for 10% off all patterns)
I can’t wait to see your WIPs! Make sure to tag me @knitsnknotswpg and use the pattern hashtag #GraniteYokeTee so that everyone can see your projects!
Happy crocheting,
Janine xx
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