I Crocheted the Most Genius Summer Top and I’m Obsessed With It
Let me start by saying I have made a lot of crochet projects. Dishcloths, blankets, beanies, amigurumi that stared at me with blank button eyes while I questioned every decision I ever made. But this summer top? This one is different. This one made me put down my hook and just stare at it for a full minute before I let myself try it on. And when I did? I texted three people immediately.
If you’ve been following along here for a while, you know I spend a lot of time during winter dreaming about what I want to make for summer. I scroll through inspiration, I bookmark patterns I’ll never buy, I start mental projects that live entirely in my imagination. This year I actually followed through, and the result is the most wearable, most flattering, most genuinely fun crochet garment I’ve made in years. I want to tell you everything about how it came together, what I learned along the way, and why I think you should absolutely make one too.
Where the Idea Came From
It started, as most of my best ideas do, with a combination of boredom and a yarn destash. I had several skeins of a beautiful cotton-linen blend in a warm terracotta color that I’d bought on impulse at a local fiber festival last year. The yarn was too pretty to sit in a bin forever and too summery to use on anything cozy. I knew it wanted to be worn somewhere warm, ideally near a body of water.
I’d been seeing crochet tops everywhere — on Pinterest, on Instagram, in boutiques where the price tags made me genuinely laugh out loud. Fifty-five dollars for something I could absolutely make myself? Sixty-eight dollars? I took that as a personal challenge. Not just to save money, though I did, but to make something that actually fit me the way I wanted it to fit, in a color I loved, with a stitch pattern that felt interesting and intentional rather than like a last-minute decision.
After a lot of swatching and a few failed starts, I landed on a design that combined a simple mesh stitch with a solid border, adjustable straps, and a slight crop length that works over high-waisted pants, shorts, or a flowy skirt. It’s beachy without being costumey. It’s casual without being sloppy. It is, if I do say so myself, genius.
The Yarn That Made It All Work
I cannot overstate how much the right yarn matters for a summer crochet top. This is coming from someone who once tried to make a summer garment in acrylic and ended up with something that would have been perfectly comfortable in Antarctica. Learn from me.
For this top, you want a plant-based fiber or a plant-based blend. Cotton is the classic choice, and for good reason — it’s breathable, it washes well, it holds its shape, and it comes in every color imaginable. Cotton-linen blends add a little drape and a slight texture that I find incredibly appealing for warm-weather garments. Bamboo blends are another wonderful option; they have a silky quality that photographs beautifully and feels incredible against skin.
For my top, I used a cotton-linen blend in a sport weight. I went through about 400 yards total, which means this is a genuinely stash-friendly project. If you have remnant skeins of plant-based yarn in similar weights, this is a great opportunity to use them up — a striped version would be absolutely stunning and would let you use up all those partial skeins you’ve been holding onto.
What to avoid: anything too fuzzy, anything too thick, and for the love of all things holy, anything non-breathable. This top is meant to be worn when it’s hot outside. Make it comfortable to wear when it’s hot outside.
The Hook and the Tension Question
I made my top with a 3.5mm hook, which gave me a fabric that had some drape without being so open that I needed a separate bralette underneath — though I do wear one anyway, because that’s just my preference. If you want a tighter mesh, go down a hook size. If you want a more open, airy fabric that’s definitively meant to be a layering piece, go up half a size.
Tension is everything with wearables. I know people say that about every project, but it is especially true with garments, and especially true with lightweight summer tops where there’s not a lot of ease to hide uneven work. Before you start your actual top, please make a swatch. I know swatching feels like homework. I know it’s the step everyone wants to skip. But an inch of difference in your gauge can mean the difference between a top that fits beautifully and one that ends up as a very expensive dish rag. Make the swatch. Wash the swatch. Measure the swatch after washing, because cotton in particular has a habit of changing size once it gets wet.
The Construction: How This Top Is Actually Built
One of the things I love most about this top is how it’s constructed. Rather than working flat pieces and seaming them together, this top is worked in a way that minimizes seams and makes the whole thing feel cohesive and intentional.
The body starts at the hem and works upward. The mesh stitch pattern I used is beautifully simple — it’s a chain-space mesh that creates an even, lacy grid. It looks impressive but requires nothing more than basic chain stitches, single crochets, and an ability to count, which honestly, some days is the hardest part.
Once the body reaches the underarm point, you split for the front and back. This is where a lot of people get nervous about garment construction, but I promise it’s less complicated than it sounds. You simply stop working in the round and work each section flat. The back is worked to the shoulder length you want, and then you add a simple solid-stitch border along the top edge. The front is worked the same way. Then you join the shoulders, either with slip stitches or a flat seam depending on your preference, and you’re almost done.
The straps are worked separately and attached, which means you can make them exactly the length you need. This is such a simple adjustment, but it’s one of the things that makes this top feel genuinely custom. Adjustable, adaptable, and made for your actual body.
Sizing and Adjustments
Speaking of your actual body: let’s talk sizing. This is a topic I feel strongly about because I spent years making crochet patterns that were written for one size only, and I spent years feeling like my body was the problem when the garment didn’t fit. Your body is not the problem. The pattern is the problem. Or rather, the lack of inclusive sizing is the problem.
This top can be sized for essentially any bust measurement. The key is in your starting chain — the circumference of the hem. Before you begin, measure the widest part of your torso that the top will cover. Add a few inches of ease depending on how fitted you want the finished piece to feel (I added about two inches for a relaxed but not oversized fit), and use that measurement along with your gauge swatch to calculate your starting chain.
A few specific adjustments worth knowing about:
The length is entirely up to you. I made mine a standard crop length, sitting about an inch above my waistband, but you could easily add more rows to the hem section for a longer silhouette. You could also make it longer in the front than the back for a hi-lo effect, or work it as a full tank top length if that’s more your style.
The strap width and placement are also adjustable. I placed my straps about four inches apart at the back and about five inches apart at the front, which worked well for my frame, but you should try on the partially finished top before you attach them permanently and see what feels right.
If you have a larger bust, consider adding some short rows to the front piece to give it a little extra depth. This is a more advanced adjustment, but it makes such a difference in how a top fits and drapes on a fuller chest.
The Stitch Pattern Breakdown
The mesh stitch is genuinely one of my all-time favorite stitches for summer garments, and I think it’s underused. People tend to reach for it for bags or shawls and then forget about it entirely when they’re making wearables. But it’s perfect for tops. It’s lightweight, it has beautiful structure, and it grows quickly enough to keep you engaged without going so fast that you finish before you even get to appreciate the process.
The basic pattern is a chain-space repeat. You work a single crochet into a stitch, chain a certain number of stitches, skip a certain number of stitches in your row, single crochet into the next stitch, and repeat across. On the next row, you work your single crochets into the chain spaces of the previous row. This creates the grid effect that makes the stitch so lovely.
The border stitch I used along the neckline and hem is a simple row of single crochets followed by a row of crab stitch, also known as reverse single crochet. If you’ve never tried crab stitch, it’s worked just like single crochet but in the opposite direction — you work from left to right instead of right to left. It creates a twisted, corded border that looks polished and professional and is completely worth the slight awkwardness of working backward.
What I Would Do Differently
No project is perfect, and in the spirit of being actually helpful rather than just aspirational, here’s what I’d change if I made this again.
First: I would add short rows from the beginning. I mentioned this in the sizing section but it bears repeating. The front fits beautifully when I’m standing still, but when I sit down it pulls slightly. Short rows in the front piece would solve this completely.
Second: I would block it more aggressively. I gave it a gentle hand wash and laid it flat to dry, which was fine, but cotton and linen really benefit from a more thorough blocking — pinned out to exact measurements and allowed to dry completely before unpinning. It would have opened up the mesh more and given the whole thing a slightly more polished, finished look.
Third: I would make a second one immediately in a different color. I didn’t because I told myself I had other projects to finish first, and now it’s August and I am deeply regretting my choices.
Wearing It: Styling Notes From Someone Who Is Not a Fashion Blogger
I’ve worn this top about a dozen times since I finished it, which might be a personal record for a handmade garment. Usually I finish something, admire it for a week, and then put it away because it feels too precious to actually wear. This one I grabbed immediately and started living in.
With high-waisted linen trousers and flat sandals, it’s the kind of outfit that looks effortless but took me three outfit changes to arrive at. With denim cutoffs and sneakers, it’s casual and easy and perfect for a farmers market or a slow morning with coffee. With a flowy midi skirt and strappy heeled sandals, it’s actually quite dressed up — something about the texture of the crochet elevates a simple skirt into something that feels intentional.
I’ve also worn it as a beach coverup over a one-piece swimsuit, which is maybe my favorite application. It has exactly the right amount of coverage and exactly the right amount of breeziness, and the terracotta color against a blue ocean background was, if I’m being completely honest, extremely photogenic.
Why Crochet Garments Are Worth the Investment of Time
I know not everyone is ready to commit to making a wearable. Garments take more time than most other projects. They require more planning, more swatching, more thinking. They can be intimidating if your previous crochet experience has been limited to things that don’t need to fit a human body.
But here’s the thing: the payoff is completely different. When you pull on a sweater or a top or a cardigan that you made with your own hands, from fiber you chose, in a colorway that made your heart do a little leap when you first saw it — the feeling is genuinely unlike anything else in crafting. It’s wearable art. It’s something you made that goes out into the world with you.
And practically speaking, handmade garments are often far better quality than what you can buy at most price points. The yarn I used in this top is beautiful, durable cotton-linen that will last for years. The construction, because I worked carefully and thoughtfully, is solid. This is not a fast fashion piece that will pill and fray after three washes. This is something I can wear for a very long time.
Final Thoughts: Just Make the Top
If you’ve been on the fence about trying a crochet garment, let this be your sign to try one. Start with something simple, something that doesn’t have too much shaping, something in a yarn you genuinely love. The mesh stitch summer top is a wonderful starting point — it’s approachable enough for someone who has mostly made flat projects, but interesting and stylish enough that you’ll actually want to wear the finished object.
Take your time with the gauge swatch. Make the adjustments that your specific body needs. Choose a yarn that feels good in your hands, because you’re going to be spending a lot of time holding it. And when you finish, actually wear the thing. Don’t put it in a drawer and save it for a special occasion. Put it on and go get coffee, or go to the beach, or just walk around your neighborhood in something beautiful that you made yourself.
That’s what crochet is for, after all. Not just the making, but the having made — the wearing and using and living with beautiful things that came from your own hands.
I’ll have more details on the exact stitch counts and pattern notes in an upcoming post. Until then, happy crocheting, and I genuinely hope your summer is full of good yarn, warm weather, and finished objects.
