Susie Cupcakes

I finally finished my tres chic Phildar halter top!

This project suffered from some user errors, mainly stemming from the fact that I ordered the pattern book from Canada, the yarn from the Netherlands, and had to translate the pattern from French to English. Seriously, I have enough trouble using bank machines; I don't need to create this kind of chaos. But this top looked so purdy in Phildar's Ete 2004, all elegant and simple. It was photographed in white, but I wanted purple. Fine, right? (The yarn is, by the way, a very simple cotton DK weight. You probably don't need to be chatting with the Netherlands. Word to the wise.) If I had really, you know, finished the translation of the pattern before beginning, I would have noticed that the pattern didn't have instructions for making the cord that goes around the neck. That's because it only came in white, pre-made, and you were supposed to order it when you got the yarn, DUH.

I-cord to the rescue! It worked. But when I tried it on, I noticed a distressing looseness about the back. Too loose to really wear in public, should the looseness in the back migrate to the front and become Lohan-esque. No, something had to be done!

Like....eyelets! When I thought of them, I described them to Mr. Cupcakes as "circle things, that you can put string through." Mais oui, je parle anglais! He immediately identified them as eyelets. Off to Fabric Place we went, where I purchased 100 eyelets (this should be a lifetime supply) and the eyelet pounding thingy. There is probably a technical name for this. Let's call it the pounder.

Adding the eyelets took a bit of math. I wanted the top eyelets three inches apart, the second eyelets two inches apart, and the bottom pair one inch apart. I found that "guesstimate" did not work as well as "tape measure."


I just kind of jammed them in there. The eyelets come as one piece, and then the pounder flattens the back end down.

It turns out that the pounder should probably not be used at 10:30pm on Sunday night. Also, although I really wanted to use this book to absorb the pounding

it was not hard enough, and I had to switch to a metal plate instead.

In the end, I think the eyelets work!


This is sort of a "as you go along" project, with lots of modifications. Kind of fun to keep changing it as needed.


Coming up next: a bamboo camisole. And socks, of course.