Byzantium Sweater (pt 1)
Feb. 3rd, 2022 11:03 pmPattern: Byzantine Bazic by Kathy Zimmerman (published in Interweave)
This was one of the two sweater patterns I bought when I first was thinking about how badly I wanted a cable knit turtleneck, two years ago. I made the Oxford Street Pullover last year, and wanted to make use of a pattern I spent money on. Also, I love cables and moss stitch.
Size: 37"/94 cm bust
Yarn: 100% NZ Wool, 134 m/100 g instead of 100% superwash wool, 59 m/50 g (.16 m/g longer than suggested)
I had some trouble finding yarn in the right weight for this. The listed yarn is categorized as aran, but matching up the grams/meters ratio put it in the range of bulky yarn. I found some wool yarn that's really soft and much cheaper than expected and a wine color that's close to tyrian purple (█) which appeals to me given the name of this pattern. Unfortunately, I've found two knots in this first ball of yarn, but we'll see how the rest of them shake out.
Tools: 4.5 and 5.5 mm circular needles, 6.0 mm circular needles for neck, 5.0 mm hook
It tells me to swatch in the rib & cable pattern and that 23 stitches/rows of this pattern is 4". But since the pattern doesn't repeat neatly in that span of stitches it's a little frustrating to count. I measured and got 22 stitches and if it's a little smaller because of how I'm doing twisted knit stitches, that's fine. Didn't wash or block it. Whatever.
Started: Jan 14, 2022
I think the pattern looks kind of weird around the hems because of the lack of ribbing, so I tested out some methods and ended up just adding single stitch columns of ribbing anywhere there was 3+ purls in a row, so there was more sections of 1x1 ribbing. Worked rows 1-10 with the smaller needles and switched to larger needles for row 11, while also converting the knit columns back into purls in accordance with the pattern.
Had some real issues with PTBLs and those stitches being so much larger than my KTBLs. Solving that by not doing any PTBL and just going to drop those stitches later and pick them back up with a crochet hook and do the twisted rib that way. I really don't like how the alternating rib looks. I might have been pulling the stitch when doing the PTBLs, chances are that it would even out when I block it but I don't mind doing it with a crochet hook. For the front of the sweater, I'm tempted to knit reverse stockinette and drop and pull up the ribbing with a crochet hook, but I feel like that'd pull the fabric in too much.
I think I'm pulling these knits too tight on the RS rows in specifically the seed stitch areas, but this is the least noticeable area to be uneven and it's fine.
I'm doing spit splices (well, with water) and it's my first time doing it with yarn this thick and it's going bad. I'm not thinning out the yarn enough before I felt it and it's a bit more noticeable than i would like. But I've also been lucky and the places where the yarn connects is in areas where I'm doing moss stitch which is the least noticeable section for it to be.
Reading the pattern came with its own set of problems because it's was so complicated that by the time I got to one end of the pattern I'd lose my place of what row I was on. I had to zoom in about 2x in order to clearly see what I was doing. I stitched together a bunch of screenshots in an art program, and added a semi-transparent layer that would highlight the row I was on, and just moved that bright green rectangle as I worked. Also decreased the brightness of the image for less eye strain.
Added 2nd ball of yarn on row 59 (21 + 38).
This was one of the two sweater patterns I bought when I first was thinking about how badly I wanted a cable knit turtleneck, two years ago. I made the Oxford Street Pullover last year, and wanted to make use of a pattern I spent money on. Also, I love cables and moss stitch.
Size: 37"/94 cm bust
Yarn: 100% NZ Wool, 134 m/100 g instead of 100% superwash wool, 59 m/50 g (.16 m/g longer than suggested)
I had some trouble finding yarn in the right weight for this. The listed yarn is categorized as aran, but matching up the grams/meters ratio put it in the range of bulky yarn. I found some wool yarn that's really soft and much cheaper than expected and a wine color that's close to tyrian purple (█) which appeals to me given the name of this pattern. Unfortunately, I've found two knots in this first ball of yarn, but we'll see how the rest of them shake out.
Tools: 4.5 and 5.5 mm circular needles, 6.0 mm circular needles for neck, 5.0 mm hook
It tells me to swatch in the rib & cable pattern and that 23 stitches/rows of this pattern is 4". But since the pattern doesn't repeat neatly in that span of stitches it's a little frustrating to count. I measured and got 22 stitches and if it's a little smaller because of how I'm doing twisted knit stitches, that's fine. Didn't wash or block it. Whatever.
Started: Jan 14, 2022
I think the pattern looks kind of weird around the hems because of the lack of ribbing, so I tested out some methods and ended up just adding single stitch columns of ribbing anywhere there was 3+ purls in a row, so there was more sections of 1x1 ribbing. Worked rows 1-10 with the smaller needles and switched to larger needles for row 11, while also converting the knit columns back into purls in accordance with the pattern.
Had some real issues with PTBLs and those stitches being so much larger than my KTBLs. Solving that by not doing any PTBL and just going to drop those stitches later and pick them back up with a crochet hook and do the twisted rib that way. I really don't like how the alternating rib looks. I might have been pulling the stitch when doing the PTBLs, chances are that it would even out when I block it but I don't mind doing it with a crochet hook. For the front of the sweater, I'm tempted to knit reverse stockinette and drop and pull up the ribbing with a crochet hook, but I feel like that'd pull the fabric in too much.
I think I'm pulling these knits too tight on the RS rows in specifically the seed stitch areas, but this is the least noticeable area to be uneven and it's fine.
I'm doing spit splices (well, with water) and it's my first time doing it with yarn this thick and it's going bad. I'm not thinning out the yarn enough before I felt it and it's a bit more noticeable than i would like. But I've also been lucky and the places where the yarn connects is in areas where I'm doing moss stitch which is the least noticeable section for it to be.
Reading the pattern came with its own set of problems because it's was so complicated that by the time I got to one end of the pattern I'd lose my place of what row I was on. I had to zoom in about 2x in order to clearly see what I was doing. I stitched together a bunch of screenshots in an art program, and added a semi-transparent layer that would highlight the row I was on, and just moved that bright green rectangle as I worked. Also decreased the brightness of the image for less eye strain.
Added 2nd ball of yarn on row 59 (21 + 38).
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