From Speculation to Inspiration to Sweater

or In Which I actually Use Some of The Yarn I Bought - Part 1 

One of the many things I dabble in is designing knitting patterns. Most often I do so because I conceived of a desire for a garment and couldn't find an existing pattern that was exactly what I wanted. So I try to make my own.

In this case, I first bought yarn I didn't have a plan for (as I do), then found a historical pattern that caught my fancy, then used that as inspiration to put a use to the yarn.

The five balls of K + C Willow inflated to two balls of each color when I realized I wanted to make a sweater from them. The colors suggested stripes to me, but that sounded boring on it's own, so I started dreaming up ways I could make make diagonal lines or something else overly complicated. The yarn sat for a long time, since none of those ideas really panned out (shocker).

Then I had a good browse of The Antique Pattern Library.  If you haven't visited that site before, go check it out, this post can wait. Seriously, it is a huge resource for historical, public domain patterns and instructions for just about every craft imaginable. I have found lots of great patterns there, including this one from Minerva Yarns Style Book Vol 30 (1933):

Now, I don't love everything about this pattern, but it sure does present a good starting place for finally realizing my striped sweater. I really liked the idea of alternating stripes of knit and crochet, though I did alter the stripe size and placement quite a bit. I kept the long slim sleeves and v neck, but I added a bit more poof to the tops of the sleeves. Because K + C Willow is a much different yarn that what was used here, I had to alter the stich patterns and counts a lot. Since I also wanted to size it for me, that meant making a gauge swatch and basically designing a sweater from the bottom up using this as inspiration. 

So to do that, I start with a sketch and begin filling in measurements. I wrote up a post going over the basics of measuring and customizing fit here. I was having trouble figuring out how to shape the armholes and shoulders with the crochet sections, as I am far less familiar with crochet in general. Then, my hubby asked if the shoulders were harder than the body, why couldn't I start there and get the difficult stuff out of the way? Solutions sometimes come from the least likely places, and this was a great one! I'd never done a top down sweater before, but with  few tips from my go to vintage books, it was definitely the easier way for this one.

And so I present the finished bistitchual sweater! As a bonus, it used up most of the Willow yarn, so I don't have to scramble to find something else to do with the leftovers!