I got an email from a reader asking if I could help her with her quest to knit a version of this sweater, designed by Correll Correll for Anthropologie. It’s a great summer sweater — slouchy, slightly open gauge, interesting texture, and that random colorwork. Y, I’ll call her, said she thinks she can figure out the colorwork but was having trouble finding a suitable pattern. I’ve had requests for similar things before, and honestly I’m surprised there isn’t a blank-canvas pattern — that I’ve seen — for a boxy, sleeveless top like this. But it would be pretty easy to do a little math and make it up. (Look at a few Pickles patterns, such as the Dressy Sweater, for the basic approach: Knit a tube from the hem to the underarms, divide your stitches in half for the front and back, working those sections back and forth to the desired armhole depth, then grafting it back together along the tops of the shoulders. Leave out the stripes, ribbing and sleeves.) Otherwise, you could easily adapt Elka Park by Heather Dixon, knitting it a little bit wider than the pattern calls for (going up a needle size would accomplish that and loosen the gauge), and changing the stitch pattern. I’d also make the armholes deeper.
It looks to me like the stitch pattern is a 4-row repeat: 2 rows of stockinette, then a garter ridge. But it starts at the hem with 3 garter ridges, which gives some ballast and prevents it from rolling. So after your cast-on, alternate knit rounds and purl rounds for a total of 6 rounds. Then switch to three knit rounds followed by a purl round (that’ll give you two rows of stockinette followed by a garter ridge); repeat. That’s as long as you’re working in the round. Once you’ve separated for the front and back, and are working those sections back and forth, to maintain that same stitch pattern you’d knit row 1, purl row 2 (that’s two rows of stockinette), then knit row 3, knit row 4 (one ridge of garter).
The colorwork is up to you!
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