Final Thoughts (Pre-frogging):

• Given that I had to frog the entire project because the 2 balls I started with were radically thinner than the others (knitting with both in the same project looked like I was making 2 separate projects), I am entirely NOT thrilled with this yarn and I can’t see myself using it again. How is a commercially spun yarn this inconsistent?? Moreover, the yarn colour I used (light beige) is all but see-through pre-blocking. I now realize why my gauge was a mess - the yarn isn’t consistent from ball to ball?!

• In the end, I used this pattern as a jumping off point. Changed most of the proportions / stitch counts and the stitch patterning. I might try this pattern, as written, in a more robust yarn with good recovery.

• If I opt to try this pattern again with the same yarn - 4 balls look consistent, though it’s hard to see what’s going on at the interior of each ball - I’ll use the info below as intel but, in brief, here’s what I’d do:

• Cast on 12 st at right and left back. Work till 8” of depth - don’t worry about the stitch count (though it should come in at around 84 - 86st, based on what happened last time. Don’t go higher than 86st without confirming that the sizing will work). Consider your gauge while working and try things on (gauge will no doubt be larger with the thicker balls and may actually come in at the instructed gauge). But you’ll prob want to stick with 84 st if that sizing works because it’ll enable you to use all of the info you’ve gained without new math.

• At join under arm, have ~96-100 st on each side, front and back - consider that the more st you have at the point of the join, the fewer st you’ll need to cast on at underarm.

• CO st at under arm as planned, mainly on the front body at side. But you’ll likely do 2-4 increase rounds on the back body to get to 104st. At full bust, ~40 rounds after join, you’ll want somewhere in the range of 132-136 st - for a total full bust circ of 236-240st.

• You may need to cast on a slightly diff number of stitches at under arm and neck given that you are aiming for a slightly deeper armscye.

Initial Thoughts: I wasn’t feeling the Remi Camisole with this yarn so I decided to use the Cardiff Cashmere on this Moxie top - which is knitted up at a much smaller gauge. As such, I’m less concerned about it being too open/translucent, which is frankly not useful in Cdn winter, even if I wear a cardigan or jacket over top. I frogged the Remi so that the notes are retained for legacy purposes…

About the stitch pattern: I’ve opted not to do the purl stitch texture on either the body or the ribbing - doing regular 2x2 rib because this yarn has a serious short halo which would obscure the detail.

Swatching for Moxie on US 3 in stockinette:
Preblocked Gauge: 29st and 41R in 4”
Postblocked Gauge: 27st and 40.5R in 4”

Sizing: The gauge I’m looking for is 25st and 40R in 4” but I like the fabric I’m getting on the recommended needle size (US3) at 27st. I will go up one size in the pattern to ensure that things don’t get too small. Instead of knitting the size 1 in the upper body, grading to size 3 at the full bust, I’ll knit size 2 grading to size 4.

• Update: This didn’t work. Piece was totally too long/deep at split for sleeves and also WAY too big in circumference at under arm where I added 16 st at each under arm as a quick way to work my way to 240 st (size 4) at the full bust. Each size has 3” diff in bust circ (and all of the other proportions are altered by this large span). I prefer sizing wherein there’s no more than 2 inches distinction between each size because grading, as I must, is increasingly tricky when I need to increase or decrease 6 inches vs 4 inches.

• My fix was to rip back to the point that the armscye was ~8” deep. Given that there’s an armband that will be 1” wide / deep knitted on at the under arm, I will want the extra depth or the underarm may be too short. Not sure if the pattern considers this - it doesn’t appear to so you may want to take this into consideration.

• At a scant 8”, I had 84st on each piece - front and back. I added more stitches under the arm than called for at my size (12). My starting stitch count at the split for sleeves/joining front and back is 192st (somewhere between first and second size). My aim is now to get to the circ of the third size at the full bust (220 st) which I’ll do by increasing 2 st in a round, on the front body only, as follows:

Starting dimensions at split for sleeve - 84st F, 84st B, 12st underarm (x2) = 192st. This gives me a back body that’s 96st (or 14.25”), large enough given that my back body is narrow.

According to gauge, I need to increase 28st on the front body to get to 220 at full bust and I have 3.25” of depth (or 32 rounds) in which to get there. I will only increase 2 st per round, on the front body (where I need the circumference to accommodate boob projection) so that’s 14 increase rounds over 32 round vertical depth. I will inc every other round at the front side body - M1R first and then M1L. In the event that I need additional increases over 220st, I’ve got 4 rounds after the 28 rounds, before I get to my full bust apex, to add in 2 more increase rounds - and I could do these on the front and back body, if required, to increase 4st per round. In this way I could increase the circ by another 8 stitches before full bust depth if it’s necessary.

Update: At the point that I’d done 12, 2-st increases on the front body, I realized that - while things were fitting - I wanted more circumference on front and back to decrease the amount of negative ease overall, given that this yarn is very soft and potentially will be see-through - esp if over-stretched. The way I did this was:

At 24 rounds into the increase section, the point at which I had 96 st on Back and 120 st on Front, I started doing 4-st increases every other round (instead of just 2 incs on the Front). I also determined that I needed more depth than anticipated to get to full bust so I added in an additional 8 rounds / 4 inc rounds of 4 st each time. (Note - my row gauge has stayed consistent.) This gave me an additional 24st of circ and the st count, at full bust, was Front - 136st and Back - 112st. This is 248st - well more than the 240 I originally intended to get to when I opted to go from size 2 to size 4 (vs size 1 to size 3). It would appear that, in this very delicate yarn, I have had to grade 60 stitches?!?! between upper bust and full bust. Super bizarre and not particularly easy to determine which is why I’ve been fixing things on the fly… I still think I like the way I’ve done the incs because I do need most of the additional circ on the front body but the back body could use a bit more circ starting at the point where I started the back increases. I’ll probably do this same thing if I make the garment again in this yarn.

Now, 248 st should have been, based on my gauge swatch, 36.75” of circ. But it would appear that my stitch gauge changed - and not only in the knitting-in-the round portion (I actually knit looser in the round when it’s not small diameter, than knitting back and forth). At any rate, in all areas, it would appear my preblocked st gauge is now 24st in 4”, quite diff than the 6.75” I obtained in the blocked swatch (which is supposed to grow, according to my pre-blocked and post-blocked gauges). That’s fine, and I’m actually hoping that it does get a smidge wider on blocking because the upper torso has no ease and things could be a bit more roomy at the depth of the full bust, more because I don’t want things to be sheer or for fat around my bra to show through. Mind you, 60 st of inc at 6 st per inch is 10” of increase over approx 4” of depth.

Knitting Plain: For reference, at the start of this portion of the knit, I had only used 46g of yarn - or just shy of 2 25g skeins of the cashmere. That’s incredibly light-weight! At this point, I’ll work 2” straight (no inc or dec) - aka 20R - and then begin to dec for the underbust. I’ll have to see how things are working out at this point to determine if I’ll be doing waist decreases and, if yes, how many. I’ll also have to determine whether I want to increase for the hips, should I opt to dec for the waist.

Note that I knitted the arm edging and the neckline before finishing the body increases to make sure that they wouldn’t alter the fit in a way I couldn’t predict.

Neckline: Picked up 148st and did 2x2 rib for 7 rounds. Bound off in “regular” way because I don’t like the look of tubular bind off. I used a US 1.5 / 2.5mm needle because I felt it would work better for me.

Arm Edging: Picked up 108 st and did 2x2 rib for 8R and used the basic bind off reasonably loosely. I actually had to redo the BO on the first edge because it was too tight and it raised the armscye by about 1/2 an inch.

About the Cable Cast On (which is used first on the Back Body): The pattern would be clearer if it indicated that the mechanism for cable cast on, mid row, is to turn the work around and work the cast on from the WS. That’s how the working yarn remains in the required spot while also increasing stitches neatly.