How to Crochet the Flaminia Top: A Complete Made-to-Measure Lace Pattern Guide
There is something deeply satisfying about wearing a garment you made yourself, especially when it fits your body exactly the way you imagined it would. The Flaminia Top is one of those crochet projects that manages to feel both elegant and achievable — a delicate lace construction that drapes beautifully, works up faster than it looks, and can be adjusted at every stage to suit your measurements. Whether you are a confident intermediate crocheter looking to expand into fitted garments or an advanced maker who wants a reliable lace top pattern you can return to season after season, this guide will walk you through everything you need to know.
What Makes the Flaminia Top Special
The Flaminia Top takes its inspiration from Italian Renaissance textiles — think open lacework, gentle drape, and a silhouette that is structured without being stiff. The pattern relies on a combination of shell stitches and chain spaces to create a mesh-like fabric that is breathable, lightweight, and catches the light in a way that solid-stitch garments simply cannot. It typically features a modest scoop neckline at the front, a slightly deeper back, and either short cap sleeves or a sleeveless finish, depending on your preference.
What sets this pattern apart from many crochet tops is its made-to-measure approach. Rather than choosing a size from a chart and hoping for the best, you begin with your own body measurements and build the pattern around them. This does take a little more preparation than following a standard sized pattern, but the payoff is a top that fits your unique shape — your actual bust, waist, and hip measurements, your preferred length, your preferred ease. Once you understand the method, you can apply it again and again to any lace garment.
Materials You Will Need
Before you pick up your hook, gather everything you need so the process flows smoothly.
Yarn: The Flaminia Top works best in a lightweight yarn — a lace weight (also called weight 0) or a fine fingering weight (weight 1) gives the most authentic open-lace result. Cotton, linen, bamboo, or a cotton-blend yarn will give you the best drape and breathability for a warm-weather top. If you prefer a bit of sheen, a mercerized cotton or a cotton-bamboo blend is lovely. Avoid wool unless you are making a layering piece, as wool tends to block out heavier and may feel warm against the skin. For a standard women’s size medium top, you should expect to use approximately 700 to 900 meters of yarn, depending on your exact sizing and how closely your gauge matches.
Hook: A 2.5mm to 3.5mm hook is the typical range for lace-weight to fingering-weight yarn, but always defer to your gauge swatch rather than a number on a package. The Flaminia stitch pattern is relatively open, so you may find yourself working with a slightly larger hook than the yarn label suggests in order to achieve the right drape.
Notions: You will need a flexible tape measure, stitch markers (at least six), a yarn needle for weaving in ends, scissors, and blocking tools — a spray bottle, rust-proof pins, and either blocking mats or a clean towel laid flat on a surface you can pin into. Blocking is not optional with lace; it is the step that transforms your finished piece from a crumpled knot of yarn into something genuinely beautiful.
Optional: Graph paper or a simple spreadsheet for writing out your modified stitch counts, and a row counter if you find those helpful.
Understanding the Stitch Pattern
The Flaminia lace stitch is built from a repeating unit that combines double crochet stitches with chain spaces. Understanding this unit before you begin the garment will make every decision about sizing feel intuitive rather than mysterious.
The base repeat works like this: chain a multiple of six stitches, plus any additional stitches needed for your foundation. Row one establishes alternating groups of three double crochets separated by chain-two spaces. Row two offsets those groups by working a shell of three double crochets into each chain space from the previous row, again separated by chain-two spaces. These two rows alternate throughout the body of the top, creating the diamond-like mesh that defines the Flaminia aesthetic.
Before you begin your garment, crochet a swatch of at least 20 by 20 stitches in your chosen yarn. Work it in the pattern (not just a flat foundation), block it exactly as you plan to block the finished top, let it dry completely, and then measure your gauge. Write down how many pattern repeats fit into 10 centimeters horizontally, and how many rows fit into 10 centimeters vertically. Everything that follows depends on these numbers.
Taking Your Measurements
The beauty of made-to-measure crochet is that it asks you to know your body — which is, ultimately, a good thing. Grab your tape measure and record the following numbers, measured in centimeters or inches (just be consistent throughout the entire project):
Bust circumference: Measure around the fullest part of your chest, keeping the tape parallel to the floor and not pulling it tight. Add between 2.5cm and 5cm (1 to 2 inches) of ease for a relaxed fit, or 0 to 2.5cm for a closer fit. Lace garments tend to look best with a small amount of positive ease.
Waist circumference: Measure your natural waist, which is the narrowest point of your torso, usually about 2.5cm above the navel.
Hip circumference (optional): If you plan to wear the top untucked and want it to skim the hips, measure the fullest part of your hips and seat, usually about 20 to 23cm below the natural waist.
Desired length: Measure from your shoulder (at the neck) to where you want the hem to fall. Common choices are cropped (ending around the natural waist), mid-hip, or full hip.
Shoulder width: Measure across the back from one shoulder point to the other. This will inform how wide to make your back panel.
Armhole depth: Measure from your shoulder point straight down to your underarm. This is typically between 15cm and 22cm depending on your frame.
Neckline depth (front): Decide how low you want the front neckline to fall below your shoulder. A standard scoop is around 8 to 12cm; a deeper scoop might be 14 to 18cm.
Keep these measurements somewhere you can reference easily, because you will return to them throughout construction.
Calculating Your Stitch Counts
This is the step that transforms your measurements into a working pattern, and it is genuinely not as intimidating as it sounds. You are simply doing a little arithmetic with your gauge numbers.
Take your desired bust circumference with ease added. If your gauge swatch tells you that one pattern repeat (six stitches) equals, say, 2cm, then you need to figure out how many repeats fit into half your bust circumference (since you are crocheting front and back panels separately). Divide half your bust by the width of one pattern repeat, round to the nearest whole number, and you have the number of repeats for your front panel. Multiply by six (or whatever your base multiple is) to get your starting chain count, then add any turning chain or foundation stitches the pattern requires.
Do the same calculation for length, this time using your row gauge. If two rows equal 1cm in your swatch, and you want the body of the top to measure 40cm, you need 80 rows.
Write all of this down. It sounds obvious, but you will save yourself enormous frustration if you have a single piece of paper (or a note on your phone) that says: front panel, X repeats wide, Y rows tall. Back panel, same or adjusted. Armhole shaping begins at row Z.
Constructing the Front Panel
The Flaminia Top is worked in flat panels that are seamed together — a construction method that makes both the shaping and the blocking much simpler than working in the round.
Begin with your foundation chain for the front panel. If your stitch count requires an odd multiple for the pattern to balance, adjust by one repeat. Work your first two rows to establish the lace pattern, then continue in pattern until you reach the armhole depth marker — that is, until the panel measures the same as your underarm-to-waist distance subtracted from your total desired length. (In other words, work the body section first, then shape for the armholes.)
For the armhole shaping, you will decrease the width of the panel at each side edge over several rows. A gradual decrease — working slip stitches across the first few stitches of a row, then turning and working back — creates a smooth curve. Aim to reduce the panel by the number of pattern repeats that correspond to your actual armhole width (the difference between your shoulder width and your bust width, divided by two, per side). This typically means stepping in by two to four repeats per side, done gradually over four to six rows.
Continue working straight upward from the armhole until the panel reaches your armhole depth measurement. At this point, you will shape the neckline. For a scoop neck, find the center of your panel (count your repeats and mark the middle), then work out from the center in both directions, decreasing on the inner edge of each shoulder section over several rows until you have the neckline depth you want. Work the shoulder strap portion straight until it reaches your desired strap width, then fasten off. Repeat for the other shoulder.
Constructing the Back Panel
The back panel is largely the same as the front, with two differences. First, the neckline is usually shallower — a gentle scoop that begins perhaps 4 to 6cm from the shoulder rather than 8 to 15cm. Second, if you want a slightly more fitted back, you can reduce the stitch count at the waist by one or two repeats per side and then increase back out toward the hip — a technique sometimes called waist shaping. This is entirely optional and purely for aesthetic preference.
Follow the same armhole shaping process as the front, matching your row counts so that the side seams will align when you join the panels.
Joining and Finishing
Once both panels are blocked and dry, it is time to seam them. A single crochet join worked through both layers creates a visible, slightly textured seam that many makers find attractive. A slip stitch join is flatter and nearly invisible from the right side. Whichever method you choose, join the shoulder seams first, then the side seams, leaving the armhole edges open.
If you want a clean armhole edge rather than leaving the raw stitch ends exposed, work a single round of single crochet, reverse single crochet, or slip stitch around each armhole. The same finishing can be applied to the neckline and the hem, though the hem often benefits from a slightly more decorative edging — a shell edge or a simple picot border that echoes the lace pattern of the body.
Weave in all ends very carefully. In lace fabric, poorly secured ends have a habit of working loose during wear or washing, so weave each tail through at least five or six stitches and in two different directions before trimming.
Blocking the Finished Top
Blocking a lace garment is transformative, and it is not something you can skip or rush. Fill a clean basin with cool water and a small amount of wool wash or gentle soap. Submerge your finished top and let it soak for 20 to 30 minutes — do not agitate it, just let the water penetrate the fibers. Gently squeeze out the water (never wring) and roll the top in a clean dry towel to remove most of the moisture.
Lay the top flat on your blocking surface and begin pinning it out to your target measurements, using your tape measure to check width and length as you go. The beauty of blocking lace is that you can open up the mesh significantly by stretching slightly — the chain spaces bloom outward and the whole texture of the fabric becomes more visible and even. Pin at every point where you want the lace to hold open, especially along hems and necklines.
Allow the top to dry completely before removing the pins. In a warm room with good airflow, this typically takes 12 to 24 hours. Once dry, the lace will hold its shape remarkably well, even after future hand-washing.
Customizing the Flaminia Top for Your Style
One of the real pleasures of understanding a garment at the pattern level is that you can make it your own in ways that go beyond simply changing the yarn color. Here are a few customizations worth considering.
If you prefer more coverage, you can extend the panel upward past the standard armhole measurement and instead shape a short sleeve by working additional rows out to the side after the armhole shaping, creating a cap sleeve. Aim for a sleeve depth of 8 to 12cm and a sleeve width that matches your upper arm circumference with a few centimeters of ease.
If you want to add length and turn the top into a tunic or a beach cover-up, simply continue the body rows downward. A longer garment benefits from a hip-shaping calculation, increasing by one to two repeats per side at the hip line if your hips are fuller than your waist.
For a bralette-style cropped version, end the body rows right at or just below the natural waist and finish with a stretchy or firm waistband. A row of single crochet worked tightly into the bottom edge of the lace, followed by several rows of half double crochet, creates a simple banded hem that provides structure without disrupting the lacy body.
You can also experiment with working the top in two colors, switching yarns every few inches for a subtle gradient, or adding a contrasting edging in a complementary shade. Because the Flaminia stitch is so open, colorwork read beautifully and clearly.
Caring for Your Finished Top
A handmade lace garment deserves gentle care. Hand wash in cool water with a mild detergent, support the weight of the wet fabric carefully (wet yarn is heavy and can stretch), and lay flat to dry every time. Avoid machine washing unless your yarn is specifically labeled as machine washable, and even then use a mesh laundry bag and the gentlest cycle. Store the top folded flat rather than hung, as hanging can stretch the lace out of shape over time.
With proper care, a well-made Flaminia Top will last for many years and continue to look and feel beautiful with each wearing.
A Note on Process and Patience
Made-to-measure garment construction requires a slightly different mindset than following a standard pattern row by row. You are making decisions at every stage, checking your measurements, adjusting your stitch counts, and taking responsibility for the outcome in a more active way. This can feel unfamiliar at first, but it becomes genuinely enjoyable once you trust the process.
The Flaminia Top is a wonderful project for building that confidence because the stitch pattern itself is simple enough that you can focus your attention on the construction logic rather than on complex stitch sequences. After you have made one, you will find that the second one — perhaps in a different yarn, a different silhouette, a different color — comes together much faster and with much less second-guessing. That is the real reward of learning to crochet from measurements rather than from a fixed size chart: the skills transfer to every garment you ever make after it.
Take your time with the swatch, be precise with your measurements, write your stitch counts down before you begin, and block generously at the end. Do those four things, and your Flaminia Top will be exactly what you imagined it would be when you first saw the stitch pattern and thought, yes, I want to wear that.
