The Summer Dreams Crochet Top

Get ready to show off your trendsetting style with the Summer Dreams Crochet Top, a new pattern from Designs by Key. Keep reading to know more about how this top came to be.

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I think it’s safe to say that I have a thing for sleeves, and the Summer Dreams Top is no different. This fun and flirty crochet top is perfect for the warm summer days and also the cool summer nights. The oversized sleeves coupled with a beautiful lacy design makes this top light and airy.

In designing the Summer Dreams Top I knew I wanted to create a pattern that had a meshy look to it, but didn’t involve the square mesh boxes. After hours of swatching and frogging, I settled on a stitch pattern that I knew I absolutely had to work with. Now the new task was, now what do I do with it?

We’re all friends here right? Then I have to be honest….this is not the design I drew before I started crocheting the design. I intended for this crochet top to look completely different from what it ended up to be. I made this realization about midway through crocheting the design, but I loved it so much (and I worked on it for hours), there was no way I could rip it out. And I’m so glad I didn’t.

The Yarn

For this crochet top, I used one of my top yarn choices for Summer projects, Lion Brand Comfy Cotton Blend. I’ve used this yarn before in some other projects like the Summer Breeze Crop and the Summer Breeze Crop 2.0, and it has quickly become one of my favorites. This category 3 yarn is a blend of 50% polyester and 50% cotton, which makes it super soft and perfect for shawls, tops, and just about anything else. It is a cake style yarn that comes in skeins of about 392 yards. For the Summer Dreams Top, you will need from 3-5 skeins depending on the size you crochet. Trust me, you can go wrong with the Comfy Cotton Blend, it’s a dream to work with (see what I did there).

Purchase PDF Pattern

Yarn Subs

Now, if you can’t get your hands on the Comfy Cotton Blend yarn, no worries, this crochet top can also be achieved using just about any other category 3 light yarn. A couple great substitutes for the Comfy Cotton Blend would be KnitPicks CotLin lightweight DK or Paintbox Yarns Cotton DK.

The Inspiration

My inspiration for this crochet top can be summed up in one word…inclusivity. I personally know the feeling of seeing a piece of clothing that you love, only to find out that it only comes in 3 sizes and you’re nowhere near any of them. That same feeling translates into the fiber world. On my crochet journey, I noticed that the majority of the “cute” tops were in sizes S-L. My options were to either buy the pattern, and do the math myself to figure out my size or spend hours trying to eyeball a photo and recreate it. Both of those options are just a headache. So when I design, I keep everyone in mind, short, tall, skinny, fat, blue, purple, and everyone in between.

Having an awesome group of makers test drive a new idea is a major part of the design process. Testing allows the designer to work out all the kinks before the pattern goes live. I could not have completed this crochet top without the help of my lovely Designs by Key testers! Click their links below to show them some love, and to see their finished Summer Dreams Tops!