You picked the JW Anderson knot front top in the poll, and I want it for myself too, so we started it today.

This was not a drape from scratch. I began from my fitted jersey torso block, and I want you to notice why. Copying a block you already have, cutting it a little longer and larger, then refining it on the form is far quicker than building a design from nothing. This is exactly why I keep telling you to make your base blocks.

It looks like a simple top. It is not. The front knot I worked out fairly quickly. The back is where the real shaping happens, and that is what we will correct next week.

Demonstration Steps:

• Traced the fitted jersey torso block, front and back, onto fresh paper as a working pattern, keeping the block itself untouched. It reaches the hip, which is the length this design needs.
• Relaxed the block, because a fitted block has no room for a knot to drape. Added about half an inch at each side seam, roughly two inches overall.
• Dropped the shoulder by about an inch, and raised the underarm rather than lowering it. You lower an armhole when a sleeve is going in; with no sleeve it wants to come up.
• Noted that the ease depends on your fabric. A thicker knit needs more room to drape than a thin, fluid one.
• Kept the tighter neckline on the pattern deliberately, so the final neckline could be decided on the body rather than guessed on paper.
• Cut a working muslin in a thin drapey fabric, marking the reference points that matter: centre front, centre back and the side seam. The waistline matters less here.
• Stitched only the shoulder seams before going to the form, so the side seams stayed free to be pinned and moved.
• Used safety pins rather than straight pins, which is much easier on a jersey, and pinned the side seams down to the waist.
• Discovered on the form that two inches of ease was not enough for me in this fabric. It works on the form, which is a size smaller, but my own version needs more room.
• Worked out how the fabric actually travels: the back wraps around the body and comes forward, so the side seam moves toward the front rather than sitting on the side, and the knot pulls the fabric away from the body on one side.
• Left it pinned rather than forcing a conclusion, having identified that one side should hang straight down while the other comes forward.

Questions & Answers:

• Q: Should the side seam be raised if there is no sleeve?
• A: Yes. Dropping the underarm is what you do to make room for a sleeve head. Without a sleeve you want it higher, or the armhole gapes.
• Q: Is the muslin fabric right for this?
• A: Honestly, I wish I had used something with a bit more body. This one is very flimsy. It still told me what I needed about the knot, but a slightly firmer fabric would have read better.

That was two and a half hours of work on a top that retails for hundreds of pounds, and probably a good deal more. Once the pattern is right you can make it in any fabric, any colour, with a different neckline, shoulder or sleeve.

Next week we correct the pattern properly, and I will show you how to fold those changes back into your own block so you have it permanently.

It looked easy when we started. It really is not, and that is what made it a good one.