I recently finished my Josephine Top:
The pattern is from Interweave Knits magazine, Summer 2007 and the designer is Deborah Newton. I used a yarn called Camila from Elann, which is a summery, linen/cotton blend. I knit it on a size 3 bamboo needle. I like this pattern a lot, because it had just enough pattern to keep things interesting, minimal finishing, and inventive use of short rows to make cap sleeves. I had visions of wearing this deep-v necked garment over a fresh white blouse or camisole. I plan to knit another one making corrections based on a Very Important Lesson that I learned while working on this project.
This top taught me the true meaning of having a long torso, and of the importance of taking a shoulder seam to-what should I call it-underboob?-measurement. Let's face it-I am tall, but appear to be tall in a different way than most tall people. I apparently (according to highly scientific research I did looking at charts on the internet) have regular length legs. Pants with the normal (or what the world has declared normal) inseams of 31"-32" fit me, but if I look at "tall girl" clothing sites, it appears that most tall people have trouble finding pants with a long enough rise or long enough inseam.
Me, I am tall in the upper half of my body, and have thus spent my entire life yanking my shirt hem down so that it covers my stomach. Where "standard" garment length puts hem to armhole measurement at about 15", I need about 19-20." Similarly, my shoulder to underboob measurement is 16" and I have found I am most comfortable with garments that end up at about 29"-30" garment length. Poor Josephine that I just finished is approximately 22" in garment length. The ribbon that is supposed to go under the boobs and create that flattering empire waistline hits me right at the highest point of the bust, instead of where it should be, approximately 6" lower.
The moral of this story is, know your measurements. But not only that, use the handy-dandy schematic that is printed with the pattern and hold your own measurements up against those of the schematic. In this particular pattern, there were two easy places that I could have given myself more length. I could easily have worked more repeats of the lace pattern at the bottom, and then could also have easily added more length (or even short row darts) to the allover texture section before starting the armhole decreases. I would totally go back and fix this, but as it turns out I had ordered exactly enough yarn to make the garment at the length specified in the pattern, so I have about a 1" ball left over. Turns out I was so worried about making the distance around correct, I forgot to give proper attention to the measurement that is most important for me-the overall garment length.
