Finishing My Take Turns Tank

My Take Turns Tank is finally done! Well, it’s still soaking wet and blocking, but all my work on it is done. 

Last week I left off on being almost done with the first side of armhole ribbing. The photo that I showed was already my second attempt at that point, since the first attempt had sloppy ribbing and a stiff stockinette curl. 

It took me all the way to finishing the bind off and holding it up to my body to realize that I did it on the wrong side. The decreases that are supposed to sit at the back corner of the armhole were sitting on the front. So I had to frog and redo it for a third time. Annoying, but glad I did it because it honestly ended up looking better on the third attempt. 

Once I finished both sides of the armhole ribbing, I worked on the neckline finishing.

This section of the pattern was honestly the most frustrating. The pattern gives extremely detailed charts and diagrams showing exactly how many stitches to pick up for each area of the neckline for each size, plus troubleshooting advice about checking the fit over your head before securing the fold. Beyond the pickup, it felt closer to a riddle than a pattern. It felt a little bit like a secret was being kept from me.

Once the stitches were picked up, these were the only remaining neckline instructions:

Option A: If you used a high contrast / strongly textured yarn, pick up sts using CC, then change to MC and knit 7 rounds. If you used a more subtle contrast / less textured yarn, pick up using CC, knit 1 round in CC, then change to MC and knit 6 rounds.

Option B: work entire neckband in MC, including picking up.

That’s it. There aren’t any additional notes in a finishing section later on either. The pattern mentions briefly in the construction details that the neckline will be sewn down, and brings it up again when talking about troubleshooting the amount of pickup stitches, but there are zero instructions for how to actually complete that.

I tried going to the video tutorial section of the pattern and while there wasn’t one for the neckline, there was one for the folded hem. Unfortunately, the “links” in my PDF were no more than blue underlined text. I’m not sure if that was an issue with downloading the file through Ravelry or an issue with the pattern itself, but annoying regardless.

I ended up using this YouTube video to help me complete the neckline, and I think it ended up working out well. Secure, but still stretchy.

Once I finished the neckline, it was time for a game of yarn chicken with the rest of the torso. The pattern says to start the folded hem once the body reaches about 10 inches from the underarm, then knit 9 rows, switch to smaller needles, and knit another 9 rows. I made it to about 8 inches before I started worrying about having enough yarn left for the full hem. I ended up having to move my marker up a little, and my hem became 8 rows and 8 rows instead.

Once again, there were really no instructions for how to actually finish the folded hem beyond a broken video tutorial link. Luckily, I had done a folded hem before on another project. So I was able to go back to this post and use the same folded hem guide I linked there (I knew this blog was good for something).

Sewing down a folded hem is always tedious, but this yarn made it especially so. I needed to make sure the single ply yarn stayed twisted enough to hold together, because otherwise it became fragile and risked breaking. But if it got too twisted, it would start to kink up into knots while I was trying to pull it through. It was a stressful process getting that last strand to the finish line. In the end, I was left with about 6 inches and a few tiny scraps from weaving in ends.

Trying it on before blocking honestly went better than I expected. I was worried it was going to feel way too small, and while it was definitely snug, I didn’t struggle to get it on. There were definitely areas that needed to relax with blocking, especially around the neckline and yoke. The body itself though was very compressive. After taking a couple pictures, I felt like I was wearing a sports bra that was a size too small and needed to get it off my body, but I couldn’t help but love the really nice smoothing effect it gave.

My goal with this tank top from the beginning was to be able to wear it without a bra, and at least at the pre-block stage, that was accomplished. I’m hoping the blocking process relaxes it enough to comfortably breathe in it without completely losing that structure and support. 

Overall, I had pretty mixed feelings about this pattern. Let’s start with the frustrations so we can end on a good note.

I don’t think the actual knitting itself was especially difficult, but I did find the pattern frustrating to follow at times. Between the two-column layout, the constant switching between different options, and size instructions being embedded all over the place, the whole thing started feeling visually cluttered and unnecessarily convoluted.

There were a lot of moments where I felt like I was hunting through the page trying to figure out which instructions actually applied to me, or piecing together information from different sections instead of just following one clear flow. At times, it felt like the pattern was extremely detailed in areas that didn’t necessarily need it, while other much more important construction details were barely explained at all.

That being said, there are still a lot of things I appreciate about this pattern. The size range is genuinely inclusive, with 9 sizes going up to a 60-62” finished bust plus optional bust dart instructions. Although I did feel like all of the different options contributed to some of the confusion I had while reading the pattern, I do appreciate the intention behind giving knitters so much flexibility throughout.

I really do love the overall shape and fit the pattern is aiming for—it’s the reason I picked this pattern in the first place—and I think there’s a pretty good chance I end up with something I actually want to wear.

If this thing finishes drying sometime in the next 24 hours, I’ll come back and add some thoughts on the final fit here. If not, I’m sure I’ll give an update in next week’s post.