Bloom Vest in Adriafil Petalo - Downloadable PDF

Bloom Vest in Adriafil Petalo – Free Knitting Pattern Summary

The Bloom Vest is a stylish, sleeveless knitted top designed for women, worked in the luxuriously soft Adriafil Petalo yarn. Available as a free downloadable PDF, this pattern produces a shaped, figure-flattering vest with elegant waist shaping, decorative short-row construction on the front panels, and a graceful V-neckline created through careful decreasing at the centre front. It is an ideal project for knitters with some experience who want to explore short-row techniques and garment shaping in a relatively straightforward DK-weight project.

What Is Being Made

The finished garment is a sleeveless vest (tank top style) with shaped side seams, armhole shaping, and shoulder shaping. The front is worked in two separate halves, each featuring short-row construction that creates a distinctive, angled or draped effect across the body. The back is worked as a single piece. Once both front panels and the back are complete, the pieces are seamed together using a tapestry needle. The pattern is sized for a bust measurement of 40 (42–44), making it suitable for a range of women's sizes.

Materials Required

• Yarn: Adriafil Petalo in green, shade no. 15 – 200 grams total
• Knitting needles: Size 4 mm (no. 4)
• Tapestry needle for seaming and finishing

Adriafil Petalo is a DK-weight yarn known for its soft, petal-like texture and gentle drape, making it well suited to a close-fitting garment like this vest. Its smooth composition allows stitch definition to show clearly in garter stitch, and its tactile quality makes the finished fabric comfortable against the skin.

Tension and Gauge

Achieving the correct gauge is essential for a well-fitting garment. The pattern specifies a gauge of 22 stitches and 33 rows over 10 × 10 cm, worked in garter stitch on 4 mm needles. Knitters should always work a tension swatch before beginning and adjust needle size if necessary to match this gauge exactly.

Pattern Stitches and Techniques Used

Elastic Rib

The borders at the lower edges of both the back and front panels are worked in elastic rib, spanning 6 rows (approximately 1 cm). This ribbing provides a neat, stretchy edge that sits comfortably against the body and prevents the hem from curling. Elastic rib alternates knit and purl stitches in a regular sequence to create a flexible, structured border.

Garter Stitch

The main body of the vest is worked entirely in garter stitch – that is, knitting every row on both right-side and wrong-side rows. Garter stitch produces a ridged, slightly textured fabric with good horizontal elasticity. It lies flat without curling, which makes it particularly suitable for a garment with open edges such as armholes and a V-neck. The stitch also complements the soft texture of Adriafil Petalo beautifully.

Short-Row Construction

One of the most distinctive features of the Bloom Vest is the use of short rows on each front panel. Short rows are a technique in which the knitter works only partway across a row before turning the work and knitting back, without completing the full width. In this pattern, the knitter begins by working just the first 6 (4–8) stitches, then turns, then progressively adds 6 more stitches every two rows until all cast-on stitches are in play. This gradual pick-up of stitches creates a shaped, angled fabric that gives the front panels their characteristic Bloom silhouette. Short rows are a valuable technique used in garment knitting to add three-dimensional shaping without additional seaming.

Side Shaping – Decreases and Increases

The back and front panels are both shaped at the sides to create a fitted waist. On the back, stitches are decreased at each end every 6 rows, 10 times, to draw in the waist, and then increased every