This is my first test for the French designer, Natalie Perreau. The name of this design comes from « Venez Chère Ombre », with the mezzo soprano Eva Zaïcik (Alpha Classics) which Natalie was listening to repeatedly when designing it and writing the pattern. Have a listen. I fell in love with this gorgeous design the minute I saw it.

Needles used:

Size 2 US Addi - Body, lower ribbing, picking up stitches around the armholes

Size 1 US Milward - Neckband and armhole ribbing. I picked up the neckband stitches with size 1 US also.

Size 0 US Milward - All bindoffs

Weight of finished garment: 13.2 oz (374.2 grams)

Measurements:

Bust / Body circumference - 52.5”

Back length (laid flat) - 28”

Back length (hanging) - 29”

What I did differently:
Many thanks to the designer, Natalie for allowing me to make these modifications!

• The armholes turned out to be too low for Janny’s shorter body, so I ended up adding lace gussets under the arms. Please note that my sister is short, so this will probably not be necessary for most people! The designer did end up shortening the armhole depth a bit following the test results. My yarn and slightly longer row gauge contributed to my initial armhole length problem. After blocking (shrinking in a warm dryer), my row gauge was exactly per the pattern.

• Armhole stitches picked up for the ribbing = 126 (33 gusset sts + 93 front & back armhole sts). My pickup ratio was 3 out of every 4 sts. Nothing tighter was necessary due to the gussets I added under the arms.

• Neckline stitches picked up for the ribbing = 148. My pickup ratio was exactly per the pattern. However, since I had eliminated 8 rows from the armhole depth in front and back, I ended up with fewer stitches than specified in the pattern for size 5.

• Besides the extremely long (tunic) length which Janny requested, I made the bottom ribbing much wider than suggested in the pattern. Janny wanted 28 - 29 inches total garment length from shoulder to hem. In order to achieve this, I did 4 complete repeats of Chart 1 for the back. Then I started Chart 3 at the same time as the bottom twisted ribbing. After completing Chart 3, I continued the twisted ribbing all the way around the bottom edge until it measured 3 inches high from the starting point. The pattern suggests doing some decreases in certain chart areas before starting the ribbing. I did not do any decreasing in the Chart 1 panel, but I did one ‘p2tog’ at the end of each Chart 2 motif in order to keep the ‘k1tbl, p1’ stitch pattern intact. I also repositioned a couple of the stitches in Charts 1 and 2 to keep this sequence of ribbing uninterrupted. It turned out looking very nice at the bottom - just as I had intended.

Backwards Loop Cast-On Video Tutorial

Jennifer Weissman showed me this bindoff.
I used this for the lower edge only. I don’t know why the video is calling this a “decrease bindoff.” There’s no decreasing here. I did a regular bindoff in all the chart panel areas of the lower edge. I used a very tiny (size 1 US) needle all the way around the bottom when binding off.