How To Knit A Summer T Shirt Top Down.

Hi and welcome to my channel. My name is Kika and today I'm gonna show you some of the special techniques used in the Vanilla Tila Tee. The Vanilla Tila Tee is the first summer knit pattern that I'm releasing in 2026. I'm really excited about it and I want to show you some of the details and especially some of the finishing techniques I've used in this. In this video we're first gonna shape the yoke flat and then continue in the round. Then you're gonna work the body in the round and here for the body hem you're gonna work it to double height and then it's gonna be folded and attached on the inside and I'm gonna show you that. Then you're also gonna do the same for the sleeves. They're knitted in the round. Work that same folded cuff for both sleeves and then lastly I'm gonna show you how to pick up stitches here for the collar on the wrong side and then the collar is worked to double height with a little bit of purl bump here or purl round here and then all the stitches are attached on the outside bound off together with some picked up stitches here below that pickup edge. I designed this like as a really go-to tee for summer so I have worked this in a DK weight yarn the Drops Bell which is like such a nice yarn. I can really recommend it. It's super affordable and I really enjoyed working with it and it is let me grab a skein of it. So the content of the yarn that I used is 53% cotton 33% viscose and 14% linen so it's really really comfortable against the skin and actually Sannes Garn has an exactly same I think it's the consistency is exactly almost the same yeah it's exactly the same um so Sannes Garn has the same consistency I think the same yardage as well these two you can use you can also hold two strands of any fingering weight yarn together to create the same thickness of yarn essentially of course you can also choose like a merino and a silk mohair or something completely different if you're working for a different season but um so this is like a DK weight yarn but I'm actually also working on the exact same pattern in a lighter version so it's going to be the vanilla chilla tea light or vanilla chilla light tea I don't know where I'm going to insert that light word but essentially the same tea but in a fingering weight yarn so that is coming up I'm working on it in a dark blue in a thin line yarn so just one strand of fingering weight yarn so if you really like this uh the fit of this but you would like to have it in like even more nice thinner fabric for the like really hot summer days you can choose that instead all the techniques are the same so they still apply in this video all right without further ado I'm gonna jump straight into the actual like guide tutorial portion of this video as always you can find the pattern to the vanilla chilla tea over at kutuvakika or then at Ravelry if you prefer to have it in your Ravelry download library and you can use so in the description below here on youtube um you can see chapters so I put like time stamps for the different techniques so you can go and check exactly where the specific techniques are that you maybe want some support or help with all right let's begin so first I'm gonna show you how to work the yoke and the yoke is first actually knitted flat so you're gonna knit back and forth for a few rows and we do this to help raise the back so you can see here that the back is taller than the front and that will create a really nice and flattering fit I'm gonna be using the long tail casted method but you can actually use pretty much any cast on method that you prefer because this edge is gonna be hidden anyways because we're gonna be picking up stitches for the double folded color at the end when you cast on all of your stitches we're gonna work one preparation row on the wrong side and we're gonna be placing stitch markers eight different stitch markers to mark where the raglan seams are going to be this is optional but I'm gonna be using different colors for each pair it's just a little fun way to keep visually track of where you are I've now placed my markers you can see here we have these raglan seams and here is here are the back stitches and here are the sleeves so we haven't actually we only have a few front stitches and now the next thing that we're gonna do is we're gonna work this back and forth and we're going to be increasing with what is called kfb so we're going to be knitting front and back the same stitch to create this really nice neckline shaping next I'm going to be showing you the technique kfb knit front back make one right and make one left so the first row on the right side starts with a kfb so knit front back so you're gonna as you would normally just go in through the stitch wrap some yarn around and take it through and then you're not going to drop it from your left to the right needle yet but actually we're going to knit the same stitch from the back loop so I will just insert my right needle here through the back loop grab some yarn and take it through so now you can see that I have knitted the stitch twice both from the front and from the back and then we can go ahead and slide it over to the right side so we've increased one stitch then I'm gonna oh my stitch is twisted here let me fix that so then I'm gonna knit one and here always on the right side here on these raglan we're gonna be making my one right and make one left so I'm gonna show you this um for like a really breakdown tutorial I'm gonna link some um to other videos below but I'll just show you sort of the gist of it so make one right is you're gonna be making an increase by picking up this strand here between the stitches so this little strand and use the left needle to pick it up from the back so that strand going through the back and then I'm gonna knit it from the front so I twist that strand like so and we've created an increase then I'm gonna slip the marker sm and then my stitches are here they're like twisted the wrong way just because I had to frog a little bit before so don't get confused about that and then again I slip and next I'm gonna do make one left again I'm gonna show this kind of quickly so I'll link to another video if you want like a more slower breakdown of this but here again locating the strand here between and make one left so now we need to go from the front and knit that stitch from the back like so and then we're gonna be doing these increases at every raglan seam here on the right side and on the wrong side we just purl but the thing that you do keep doing is make the knit front back on each row always in the first and the last stitch all right I have now completed the shaping for the back so this is what it will end up with and if you're unsure you can always check it will say in the pattern how many stitches you will have for each section so that's a great way to know if you've done enough rows next step is we're gonna start to work this in the round you have ended up on a wrong side row so next we're gonna join to start working in the round so you're gonna turn the work again and then we're gonna start to again on a right side row but this time this is going to be joined in the round I've now knitted almost all my stitches here for the right side row and here's now essentially the front stitches on the other side and then we're gonna be casting on some new additional stitches for the middle of the neckline and I'm gonna show you I'm gonna use a method called the backwards loop method so I just knit these last stitches and then you can check the pattern to see how many stitches you will need I'm just gonna grab the yarn and use my thumb and then cast on additional stitches here so these are going to be the middle of the neckline all right there I have my new stitches and then I'm going to be joining in the round so I'm gonna actually be placing a new beginning of round marker I'm gonna use a different type of marker just so I know that this is my beginning of round marker and I'm gonna pop that on to my right needle and now we're gonna start to work in the round so you have uh the beginning of our marker is in a bit of a wonky placement so it's here kind of in the middle of the front stitches and you're just gonna always let the change the round happens here so after our joining around you're just gonna start to work I'm gonna knit all these stitches for this round and then you have on every second round so on round number two you have those raglan increases and you're gonna follow the pattern so for some of the sizes the raglan increases for the sleeves stop at some point and then they continue on for just the front and the back so do check your pattern but essentially this is all you're gonna do now for the entire yoke and then you're gonna work the lower body the sleeves and I'm gonna show you some next steps next I'm gonna show you how to work the collar so the collar is worked by picking up stitches from the wrong side and then working the collar to double height essentially then it's folded over towards the outside and then it's attached by binding off stitches here together with some stitches that you pick up here just below the pickup edge so let's just work all that through here I have my striped version of the Vanilla Chilla Tee and I'm actually gonna show you now on this how to work the collar I haven't worked the full yoke yet but you can still you can work the collar at this point as well so for this I'm going to be using a smaller size needle than I am working the yoke width so I'm going to pick up a three millimeter so that's a US 2.5 circular needle all right so for the collar we're gonna start picking up stitches from the wrong side meaning I will flip my work like so and I'm gonna start picking up stitches here from one of the back raglan seams and again you pick up from the wrong side of the work and don't worry about it then showing on the right side because we're gonna fold over the the collar so it's not gonna show I'm just gonna grab some new yarn and start here doesn't really matter which which raglan seam here at the back you begin from the pickup rhythm here is approximately one stitch per stitch I have in the pattern given some numbers for each size how many stitches you want to end up with but be mindful I know that this can vary quite a lot from knitter to knitter like how many stitches you actually need just on depending on how your tension so be mindful about that I know some test knitters picked up a bit more additional stitches than was in the pattern originally so but approximately one stitch per stitch and one stitch per row once we get to those slanted edges all right I have picked up all of the stitches from around the neckline I had to skip a few here at the slanted edges here at the beginning or at the front I mean I picked up a few and you can see like it doesn't look super neat now here on the right side but not to worry because this will be hidden once we then fold over the collar so you're not gonna see that so on the right side at the moment doesn't look great but in the end it will be gone all right so when you picked up your stitches you're here now on the wrong side facing you working I'm gonna pop a beginning around marker and then I'm gonna start to just knit in the round so you're gonna knit in the round until it measures approximately like three centimeters so a bit over an inch and a quarter and then you're gonna do that purl round and then you're gonna knit in stockinette stitch an additional about three centimeters or one inch and a quarter so that's gonna look like this so here you just knit knit knit you do that purl round and then you knit knit knit and then I'm gonna show you how to bind off these stitches so it creates a really really neat fold folded edge all right I have now worked my collar to double height and I have gone in and I've put in these kind of guidelines for myself so the next step is this collar is gonna fold over like this and we're gonna attach it here on the right side and the thing that I found really tricky and what often can happen is that it starts to kind of skew because it's kind of hard to see here that you're aligning it straight so you want basically these knit columns so essentially here's where it starts and that's where it ends like the same knit column so I put in a contrasting color to some scrap yarn I just used tapestry needle to weave these in I'm gonna then take them out so now I know that when I fold it that's where the line goes I know it needs to fold exactly here and I've placed these all over here at the collar so it's just going to be so much easier now when I start to bind off stitches I'm going to use a double pointed needle and I'm actually going to size up half a needle size for this because you really want the edge to not be too tight because then it will be hard to pull the tee over your head I'm actually gonna try and bind off in a contrasting color maybe it will help it make a little visible what happens and it's also just like a fun experiment let's see if it looks good if not then I can just go ahead and then frog it all right so I'm gonna fold the color now here in half so that the purl bump is at the fold and first thing is so I'm gonna use my this spare needle and I'm gonna essentially so here you have the kind of pickup line and I'm gonna always pick up a stitch from just below that pickup line and first step is we're just going to transfer this stitch onto our left needle like this so here I have that picked up stitch from just below the pickup edge and then here's the first stitch on my needle so then I'm just going to insert my needle into these and I'm going to knit them two together and I'm going to use my contrasting color here for this and I can drop it off the needle then again I'm going to go and pick up the next loop here from just the stitch below the pickup edge and take that onto my needle and again I need to grab some yarn so the picked up stitch together with the stitch from my needle like that and then I can go ahead and bound these two off so I'm gonna just pull that first stitch over the second stitch all right so I have started binding off stitches here in this contrasting color I think looks quite fun so and here I can now go ahead and remove this help line so essentially what you do is you I'm using now the spare needle so what you do is you go in a stitch below so here you see the pickup edge quite clearly so I'm gonna use a loop from just below that edge so I'm gonna take one stitch one loop of a stitch and I grab it with my right hand needle and I transfer it onto the left needle then I will grab some yarn and I will knit these two together so the picked up stitch with the first stitch on my left needle knit those two together and then I have a stitch here already on my right needle so then I can go ahead so then I just transfer that from the left needle so I have two stitches here on my right needle and then just as in a regular standard bind off I pull the first stitch over that second stitch like that and I have bound off a stitch so let's do that once more so again I go into the next kind of stitch here and now again okay so I now I have my help line I need to move a little further so I'm already like skewed a little bit so I need to pull up a stitch from here I'll pick up a stitch I move it onto the left needle knit these two together and then I bind off that stitch so I move the first stitch on my right needle over that second stitch and then again repeat and now I have this little guide line and I can see it's peeping out there so I want to really hit that stitch underneath so I know that my collar doesn't get skewed those two together on the left needle drop them and then pull the first stitch over the second and I'm going to repeat this all the way across the collar so mind you this is a bit of a tedious part I really like the finishing touches I always think it's so nice to see everything come together but definitely recommend having good light and energy when doing this um and I had to rip back many times the first time I used this technique so you might have to rip back a few times it takes some trial and error to get this right I find all right so I've just bound off my last stitch and we have one little stitch here left and now you can see there's a little bit of like a gap so I want to make that seamless and so I'll just show you what I do so I like to go in here through the first stitch or actually let me see this is actually the first stitch you can really see it here because I use this contrasting color so I'm gonna go in and kind of through it like under that loop and I'm gonna grab some new yarn and I take it through that first loop which is going to be hard because it's very tight for some reason okay there we go like that and then I take it through and then I need my other needle then I'm just gonna go in or one more time pull that first stitch over that second stitch like that and then I've already gone ahead and cut my yarn and so I can just pull it through and let me see tighten these little bit yeah and if we have a pretty seamless little edge here of course then when I weave in the end you can make this even more seamless so I'm probably gonna weave in the end so somehow to try to make it very invisible all right so here we can now see the final result it's a little puckering but that will definitely get smoothed out once we block this and steam block it but you can really see what a nice finishing touch this technique gives and of course you can use this on other projects as well I really really like it even though it's a little time consuming but I think definitely worth it next I'm gonna show you how to attach the hem on the inside so you will have worked the hem to double length and you have this purl bump row or round here and that's going to create a really good place for you to fold down the hem and then you can see that I've attached it here on the wrong side just by hand sewing so I wanted to show you that the same technique is applied for the hem and also here for the sleeve cuffs so both sleeve cuffs use the same technique here fold it down on the wrong side and then attached by hand sewing I am working on a vanilla chilla tea here in a lighter version or a fingerinoid yarn and here I've completed the hem so here I have just done that little purl bump round and then worked my hem and just used a standard bind off method and then I've gone ahead and I left a really long tail so I can use this now when I'm gonna attach this hem so we want to fold the hem two towards the inside and fold exactly there at the purl purl bumps and what I'm gonna do is so one thing to be mindful is that you align it so that it goes straight so it doesn't start to pull or get crooked as you go and as you do this all right so let me show you what I've done here I've gone ahead and got started a little bit so you just can see how it looks so you're gonna basically insert your needle here through the top loop of that bind off edge so you can see here we have these stitches from the bind off edge and now that top loop so that is this here that is where I'm gonna take my needle through so through the top loop from from underneath and I'm gonna then attach it on one of these purl bumps here on the wrong side take it through and just pull through and then not tighten too much and then I'm gonna do that for absolutely every stitch so again I go through only that top loop of those from that bind off edge from underneath and then I try to use the same line here of purl stitches here on the wrong side to make sure and I all the time kind of check that it's in line that it doesn't become skewed or anything and kind of hold it like this or even better maybe just on a flat surface one thing to be mindful here is to not pull too tight because then that will kind of pull and you will kind of make it visible on the right side so you don't want to do that and this will create a little bit of like a nice little line here on the right side you can kind of see that so that's also why you really want to make sure that you follow the same round or row essentially here on the wrong side so this is definitely something you don't want to do when it's too dark you want to have good light be focused and do this in in yeah just when you have the energy and good light to do this here you can see the final end result so it creates a really really really neat hem and here you can see on the inside how it looks so I've just tried to trace sort of the same line just to get a really straight and clean and polished line and of course this will even out even more after we block it all right so now you've basically seen the whole like another overview the special techniques that are used in this pattern and obviously at the last step I always recommend to wet block this or steam block it that will especially help with like all of these folded the cuffs and the hem and also with the collar and with the collar you can even try because sometimes it feels a little stiff or tight especially this bind off edge so that really helps that when it's damped you can kind of stretch it out a little bit and just shape it and just help it like laid nice and flat and then that is it then you are ready to wear your new vanilla tila tee as always I would love to see your project so if you make this then you can use the hashtag vanilla tila tee if you post for example on Instagram and then on Ravelry that's like a really great place so if you go and click the pattern and then project you can see other knitters projects I always think it's so much fun to see what knitters what kind of colors you've chosen what yarns some people do modifications which I always like always of course welcome I think it's always super interesting to see how you adapt any pattern that I make into your own and often get like really inspired so somebody might make from a top a dress or um you know add some long sleeves or you know whatever you want for your own your own hand-knitted wardrobe all right I hope you found this helpful and enjoyable and I hope to see your vanilla tila tee soon also yeah that striped version I was working on in this video I think I'm going to release as like a separate pattern or or then it's going to be included we'll see how I'm kind of figuring that out still as we go and the vanilla tila tee light is also coming up if you're watching this video when it goes live all right take care and see you and come and say hi I'm over at kutuvakikko on Instagram see you next time bye