aka X Back Tank Top
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I've always been a big Nine Inch Nails fan, to the extent that they are one of two bands whose logo I'd wear on a shirt (the other being the Dead Kennedys). I'm highly resistant to T-shirts, however, so I opted to knit a shirt with the logo on it instead. I at first wanted to make a halter top, but I didn't think I could get away with wearing it to work, plus knitted halter tops tend to sag in the back. That plus the fact that halter tops can loosen and even untie themselves, which is not anything I need happening at work. It's awkward enough when this one halter top nightgown I have unties itself in the night and falls off when I get up in the morning, and that's not even with witnesses.
Anyway, so I opted to make a tank top instead, only I couldn't decide what kind of straps I wanted. The straps of the lattice back tank top proved overly complex, but I loved the criss cross effect, so I decided to make a basic X back. I had seen a similar pattern on knitty.com, but as with many of that site's patterns, it was fodder for Bad Knitting. I loathed the ribbon yarn and the confusing instructions, but I liked the basic look, so I stole the concept and heavily modified it, altering the gauge, adding waist shaping, and changing the decrease style on the neckline. The neckline I looked at started much too low, plus the pattern just didn't make a lot of sense; I had to use six sheets of scratch paper to figure out what the hell was going on since the instructions didn't explain what you were doing or why. Whys are very important in knitting, as with cooking, so you don't get people saying "Well I'll just skip that step then" and next thing you know it's a disaster. All my patterns explain the details so as to avoid that. Suffice it to say I think my pattern is much better.