A few months ago, I asked ChatGPT to write me a knitting pattern. I chose my size and got to work on the gauge. I wanted to follow the pattern as closely as possible, so when I realized I had chosen the wrong size, I changed to smaller needles and started again. After that, I ripped back to save on yarn.
I’m using leftover acrylic yarn for my summer top. I cast on 88 stitches and joined in the round to make the front. I made sure not to twist the stitches. The next instruction was to knit in the round until the piece measures nine inches from the cast-on edge. I ran out of blue yarn, so I decided to continue with white for the rest of the front.
I followed the instructions for shaping and repeated the process until only 32 stitches remained. However, I lost a stitch somewhere and had to rip back to the start of the white section and do it again. Finally, I had 32 stitches left on the needles.
The next step was to knit in stocking stitch until the piece measured 14 inches from the cast-on edge. There was some more shaping involved until only 8 stitches remained. I cast off and tried on my summer top to check the size.
The back required the same number of stitches but no shaping, so it was a straightforward tube. I cast on and counted carefully to avoid twisting the stitches. However, after knitting several inches, I realized that I had actually twisted the stitches and had to start again.
Once I reached 14 inches, I cast off all the stitches and tried on the back as well. It looked good to me.
The next step was to sew the front to the back. It took some time to figure out how to do this, but in the end, I kept it relatively simple. I joined them at a certain point, creating a hood-like structure that can go on my head, with the rest resembling a scarf.
For the armholes, I used the opening as the armhole and added ribbing. I picked up stitches and added a band of ribbing until I ran out of pink yarn. I didn’t sew up the side seams because I didn’t have any and had run out of imagination. I finished the piece by weaving in the ends.
Congratulations, I have finished my summer top! It’s time to try it on. While it may not be perfect, the piece turned out surprisingly cute. I don’t think I’ll wear this exact one outside, but maybe it has inspired me to design my own hood-scarf type garment.
