Tessellated Pullover by Andrea Mowry
Pattern: Tessellated Pullover
Yarn: Spincycle Dyed in the Wool Wild Horses, Spincycle Wilder, Ritual Dyes Sprite, Ritual Dyes Fae.
How to begin? What can I say about this project? Honestly, it was a struggle bus the entire time. The pattern directions were thorough and the overall sweater design was great, but this was my first bottom up sweater and the construction method was complicated. I love a good challenge and learning new knitting techniques, but this was probably a bit much for my skill level. When I began the sweater this summer, I only had about nine months experience. Also, I was already fairly certain that I didn’t enjoy mosaic knitting. There’s nothing wrong with mosaic knitting, I just personally don’t find it fun.
From the start, this project was a little doomed. Probably because I didn’t knit a test swatch. I selected the small size because I wanted a roomier sweater, but half way up I decided that it would be way too big. After that, I still didn’t knit a swatch, but I decided to try an XS. This wasn’t the worst because I enjoy ribbing and the main body was simple enough.
Splitting the front and back panel wasn’t too bad either. The instructions were clear and I didn’t make any mistakes, although I did get to practice twice. After a couple inches of knitting the front panel, I realized that the sweater would be too cropped so I ripped back and knit a few more inches on the body. The front shoulder shaping was challenging but the instructions were clear enough that I didn’t make any mistakes. The back panel was also simple enough and the three needle bind for the connection of the panels is so cute.
Next I did the collar to reduce the number of finishing tasks. To continue on my theme of struggle bus I decided to modify the collar and try a folded collar for the first time. To my very pleasant surprise it wasn’t too bad. A little tricky to start but it turned out really well and looks great. Since the neck hole was plenty wide I did a knitted connection instead of sewing. I knit two together, one live stitch and one stitch from the pick up. I then did the most basic bind off. Surprisingly it has enough stretch.
To be honest, the underarm connection and sleeves might have been the most challenging part of the entire project. I am not good at sewing, so thank goodness the front and back panel connection in the armpit is not visible.
After my clumsy sew sleeve join, I was really nervous about keeping the pattern from rotating accidentally on the arm with the decreases. I tried my hardest to follow the pattern, but it ended up rotating the mosaic sleeve pattern. Maybe it’s because I have no spacial reasoning? Either way, I had to restart the sleeve and ignore the written instructions. On the second attempt I realized after about three inches of knitting that the sleeve was flaring, even with the decreases! After all my previous frogging I was super motivated to have a completed sweater that I really loved, so I frogged the sleeve a second time.
At this point I really wanted to finish so I did something drastic. I picked up 10 less stitches on the arm and sized down two needle sizes to US2. Thankfully, it worked out and I actually really like the look of the tighter mosaic stitches.I finished the cuffs with Jessie’s Surprisingly Stretchy Bind Off (SSBO).
My final thoughts are that I wouldn’t do it, or any version of the tessellated, again. Since then I’ve been trying to focus on quicker, more simple knits and I feel great about that decision.