Sorry this post comes a little late as we are already well into July. Still, I think it’s worth mentioning for all of you who knit with the intention of wearing your tops. My advice is simple : don’t knit tank tops with straps so thin that they wouldn’t cover a bra strap. It’s not a modesty issue, it’s a garment construction issue. Very thin straps stretch. They don’t stretch just a little. They elongate massively: quickly (after 2-3 washes, possibly even just one) and massively (eventually to the point that the top is no longer wearable).
Tank tops with spaghetti straps are fashionable right now. Yet not all that works in manufactured clothing can be successfully translated into handknitted items. And vice-versa. Store-bought tank tops are made out of fine knitted fabric. Their straps are not floppy i-cords, quite the contrary. They are flat (which reduces friction) and are often reinforced with zigzag topstitching. So unless you are willing to knit yourself a top with lace weight yarn on 1mm needles, your fabric is always going to be way heavier than that of a store-bought T-shirt. Annoyingly, what keeps popping up on Ravelry are tops worked in DK-weight yarn with long i-cord spaghetti straps. I’ve even seen dresses with such designs. Yet this combo just can’t work: those straps don’t stand a chance against gravity !!!
An i-cord is just a narrow hollow knitted tube and you are asking these few loops to bear the load of an entire garment. That’s asking for too much. As the loops slowly rearrange under constant load, the yarn slides against itself at countless contact points. This process is resisted by friction, but over repeated wear and washing the loops gradually stretch. Of course the larger the garment, the heavier it is and the sooner the straps will stretch out. Yet I have seen videos of youtubers who knitted size XS tops and still ran into this very same problem. Not every garment has to be hand knitted, does it? If you want to wear a top with spaghetti straps, honestly, it makes more sense to buy one in a shop.
Back to the knitting world. Isn’t it ironic that even if you don’t wear a bra, the most wearable top patterns you can find are the ones that get advertised as “bra-friendly“? The designs that keep the female body in mind are described in relation to a piece of underwear. Strange when you think of it, right ?
I really wish knitting designers wouldn’t sell us knitting patterns that are hardly worth the paper they are printed on. Especially the patterns whose customers are most likely to be young and new to the craft, like those tank tops with spaghetti straps. Self-publishing has enriched the knitting world, but it has also produced tons of “designers” who know very little about garment construction and how the different fibres behave.
Yet, at this stage, I also want to bring some nuance. I myself am not a knitting designer and I know very little about silk and plant fibres. For instance, I wonder if some patterns knitted with silk do work out as silk is both very light and very strong? Maybe some tank tops that call for negative ease and are worked in some kind of ribbing pattern could work too? In such a pattern, and depending on the fibre, the fabric produced could be clinging to the body and thus the straps wouldn’t have to carry all the weight. And as for the tiny straps, my guess is that they could stand a few more washes if they are crocheted instead of knitted?
In the Principles of Knitting (Chapter 19, Uncommon shapes), Hemmons Hiatt shows an example of an i-cord knitted in a seed stitch pattern and suggests stuffing the i-cord. Note that as she presents those possibilities, she is not discussing spaghetti straps at all. But maybe those are ideas worth exploring. I wonder if inserting a very small elastic in the tube could help ?
These are educated guesses, I haven’t tried out any of them. Still, I think we can agree that nuance is warranted. What I do know is that some knitters have found value in tops that have straps that you attach together two by two, even knitted i-cords. Yes, those straps elongate too, but as you are attaching them together, you still get to wear your top.
As a side note, if you are knitting a tank top for a man, be aware that you might find yourself in the same predicament if the straps of your top are too thin. As a rule of thumb, add a few stitches to tank top straps, even when knitting those flat. Men have longer torsos, so the garment is longer and weighs more, which speeds up stretching. Bear that in mind even for cropped tops.
Unsolicited Knitting Advice 