The Superlite Top and Boxy Superlite Top are live! Find full details on each pattern and purchase each on my Patterns page.

Three years ago I embarked on the process of creating my first garment design in multiple sizes. If you’ve been reading a while, you know I have a tendency to re-engineer perfectly good patterns from others for my own use. The Superlite Top was my first attempt designing a garment, in multiple sizes, from scratch.

Moving from hobby pattern-rigger to professional designer was a huge learning curve, and I am profoundly grateful for all the help I received along the way, from yarn support, to patient tech-editing, to on-point feedback from test knitters. Thank goodness for the Big Kids, designer friends who have this process down, and gave helpful suggestions after listening to my anxiety-fueled ramblings. Also many thanks to my bestie, who let me knit her a top she didn’t ask for and then got dressed up for not one but two photo shoots.

The Superlite Top is inspired by the architecture of my adopted home city and the knitwear that its citizens would have rocked midcentury, as its population exploded and it transitioned to the massive metropolis we know today. The fitted style, modeled in pink by me, has slight negative ease and waist shaping for an hourglass silhouette. The blue version modeled by my friend has a more contemporary oversized fit and adjustable length (hers is two inches longer than the pattern as written).

Key to both versions is a very high contrast between the body and detail color. Not sure whether your yarns of choice are high contrast? Take a photo of them side by side and switch it from color to grayscale. If the two colors show up as dramatically different shades of gray, then you are ready to knit!

I hope you’ll enjoy both versions! As you knit and wear these designs, I hope you’ll tag them #SuperliteTop so we can all see how you make them your own!