Lelah Revisited

I know this is an old FO, but I wanted to do a summary anyway since it seems there are a LOT of Lelah's and potential Lelah's out there!

Pattern: Lelah Top courtesy of Christine
Materials: Patons Brilliant (69% acrylic, 31% polyester, 166 yd), almost exactly 3 skeins. Size 9 and 7 Denise Interchangeable Needles.
Gauge: 5.5 sts/in on smaller needs in stockinette
Finished size: 29" bust, 13.5" long

Started: May 18, 2005
Frogged: May 30, 2005
Finished: June 2005

Notes:
In version 0.5, I cast on 176 sts thinking that my gauge was 6 sts/in. I got through the entire lace section and eyelet row and a few inches of stockinette and then tried on the top. This is when I learned that 0.5 sts/in makes a HUGE difference. So out it went.

For version 1.0, I cast on 165 sts and repeated the fishtail pattern for 8 repeats. I then decreased before the eyelet row to 154 sts.

Summary:
Patons Brilliant is not the softest yarn out there, but because it's lace and isn't curve hugging in that area, I don't mind so much. That is a bra sticking out in the picture (my boobs are NOT shaped like that!) and that is exactly why the top isn't uncomfortable to wear. I would not suggest using this yarn and letting the girls run free. That being said, I think that the stockinette section could be downsized even more given the extreme stretchiness of the yarn.

The lace pattern was very easy to memorize and catch my mistakes in. I added stitch markers for every section of lace and that made it much easier to catch where I forgot to pass my stitches over or YO. Thankfully, the lace pattern was forgiving enough that I could just fix the problem at that time and not have to frog all the way back around to fix it.

I do think that the back sags a bit and the stockinette section should be smaller in the back to fix this. If I make another Lelah, I might try adding short rows in front for bust shaping and thereby have fewer rounds in the back to fix the sagging. But I'm very happy with the results here, especially with how quickly and easily the whole thing went!

So supposedly I learned a valuable lesson here: Check your gauge and check it often. Unfortunately, I'm still gauge retarded as the finished measurements don't quite come out to my gauge. What the heck... I'm not an engineer and I'm okay with that kind of error margin!

Thanks Christine for the ego boosting pattern!