how deep is your v?

I almost finished this Deep V Argyle tank top in the summer, but didn't get round to sewing down the steeks on the inside. Having worn it a few times now anyway, I think I can now say with some confidence that this job has fallen off the bottom of my to-do list, onto the to-hell-with-it-don't-do-because-life-is-too-short list. I have ceased to care if the inside is a little untidy, frankly it is too cold to worry about such matters. So, tadaaaa! here it is in its finishedish state.

The pattern is awesome, I would deffo recommend it. Great fun and I love the fit. There was a lot of waist and bust shaping which required a bit of concentration at the time but I think was worth it - it's a pretty thick jumper with the double stranded layer of DK yarn, so a bit of shaping makes it more flattering. The main change I made was to make the V less deep. Hard to believe, looking at those photos because it still looks pretty ruddy bloody deep to me, but I moved it up about one diamondsworth. I am all for a flattering neckline, but IMHO if a jumper doesn't keep at least some part of your bewbs warm it is a fairly pointless artifact. And thankfully it's a blissfully easy pattern to modify, because each size is actually charted out for you in full, so you can just print it out and go crazy with a red pen. Yay!

It's my second steeked garment, the first being the baby norgi, and I am happy to report that this time my blood pressure remained low throughout the process. I have a slight preference for the way the steeks were worked with this tank, by casting off a few stitches the row before the steek started. This made it much easier to do the actual cutting bit without worrying about snipping too far. I didn't, however, follow Eunny's advice and reinforce the steeks with crochet - I did them with the sewing machine. Partly because I did it this way last time and it has held up brilliantly, partly because it was quicker, and partly because I was under the impression at the time that I was using machine washable yarn, so I wanted to go for something megastrong. (Rowan Cashsoft DK, despite claiming to be machine washable on the ballband, has a tendency to randomly felt after about three low temperature washes. Fortunately I found this out before putting this top in the machine.)

So now I have a nerdy new look, sort of woolly cybergolfer / warm librarian...

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