This week I’m warding off the winter chill by knitting with Universal Yarn Deluxe Worsted Superwash. This beautiful, springy, 100% superwash wool with a rich and expanding palette of colours is a great choice for warm and cozy garments, accessories, and home décor.

Yesterday, I determined that Deluxe Worsted Superwash was a viable substitution for the yarn specified by the Roof Tiles Sweater pattern.

Today I’m starting the project and for the next 3 days, I’ll talk about how and where I deviated from the pattern instructions to make it my own.

I enjoyed knitting this textured pattern. It has a pattern repeat of 6sts and 14 rows and when I started, I thought I’d never remember it without the written instructions in front of me. Wrong. By the third repeat, I no longer needed the pattern. Not only was it permanently embedded in my memory, I now had the benefit of being able to read my knitting. I find that I knit faster when the pattern repeat is long or complicated rather than simple or short. I not only find it addictive, but I set goals for myself like, I can’t have a coffee until I finish 14 rows!

So, where did I deviate from the instructions you ask? Just a couple of places which you may take as tips.

Firstly, when it called for casting off the back stitches, I didn’t. Instead, I put the stitches on a stitch holder which was an old circular needle. When each of the front pieces was ready to cast off, I did a 3 needle bind off instead which joined the fronts to the back and made a tidy seam on the shoulders. In the picture below, you can see that I left the center back stitches on the stitch holder ready for the neck.

Secondly, the increase method for the sleeves calls for a M1. This usually means to pick up the bar between the two stitches and knit through the back loop. I use that method a lot, however, I don’t like using it directly against the selvedge as this is where you seam the sleeve in finishing. Instead, I used a YO (Yarn Over) increase which means that I made a YO instead of a M1 and knit (or purled) through the back loop on the next row. Not only does it not draw from the preceding stitch, it makes the bar more visible when seaming one side of the sleeve to the other. Easy to do and easier to seam later.

Thirdly, I want to change the collar which means that it’s important to read the pattern instructions thoroughly before incorporating any changes. This is good advice for all patterns as you may not fully understand some of the earlier instructions but everything becomes clear later on. Premature changes without reading ahead could have an impact on your results.

The next step in the pattern instructions is to join all the body pieces, however, I jumped ahead to the front edging for 2 reasons. I intend to change the collar and in doing so, I need the front edges to be made first. The second reason is to reduce the amount of bulk on my lap as I work the edges and collar.

Tomorrow I’ll knit the front edges and collar as both are deviations from the pattern. I hope you’ll join me as I continue knitting the Roof Tiles Sweater with Universal Yarn Deluxe Worsted Superwash.

This is part 3 of 5 in this series

Go back to part 2: Consider these when substituting yarn for another [knitting]

Go to part 4: Knitting the front edges and collar of the Roof Tiles Sweater

The post 3 pattern changes to the knitted Roof Tiles Sweater | how where & why appeared first on KNITmuch.