Permission Granted to Make the Pattern Your Own!

I just finished my newest project, Zanete Knits' Barberry Sweater. And there were lots of ways I made this my own, and we encourage you to go rogue too! It's just knitting, you can undo it if it's not working out :) - until you cut it, that is!

It started in late December, our Twice a Year Clear-Out Sale was going on and I was inspired by the color choices of a customer checking out. At the end of the day, I went up to the sale to see if I could find anything similar and there wasn't quite enough in the DK I wanted but there was something similar in Worsted. So I gobbled it up and started searching for a pattern. 

In my pattern search, I knew I wanted DK - it would go faster (our winter will be ending here soon) and it's not as heavy as Worsted (again, our winters :). I added in filters for: 2 colors, cardigan, steeks (I was ready for the challenge of cutting!) And found Zanete's Barberry Sweater! This can be a pullover or a cardigan. I loved the large flowers and the big buttons, the slight crop.

Here's a few ways I went off-road:

1. Even with making the sleeves shorter, I wasn't going to have enough DK, so I decided to use the Worsted that I had for all of the ribbing. Though it is the same dyer, the fiber content is not the same and so it takes the dye slightly differently. That was OK with me; I was also considering using the contrast color for the ribbing too.
2. Because my gauge is off and can also change from my swatch to when I get going in the project (even if I swatch in the round) I tried this project on A LOT with our goat tubing! I was determined to love the fit! I also blocked it along the way. My first blocking was about 10 rows into the colorwork to make sure that I wasn't pulling too tight and that it would block out flat with the blocking wires. I tried it on again before I separated for the sleeves (I might have been able to separate a little sooner, but I get uncomfortable with tight armpits). Tried it on again for length. And I gave the whole sweater another wet block before I started my ribbing. This was because my Worsted ribbing yarn is partly superwash wool and I knew that that would relax a lot more than my non-superwash body. Now that the sweater is done, I really won't block the ribbing at all.
3. I wasn't sure if I wanted a deep purple or a deep maroon for the flowers so I switched partway through the flowers, this is something I really didn't need to do and not sure I'd bother with again - it's even hard for me to see where I did that.
4. One of the things I loved about the pattern was the way that the colorwork went beyond the sleeve separation. When that didn't happen with my own project I was a little bummed. My gauge is usually off so I wasn't surprised, but just disappointed. I was too excited about this sweater to let that feature go. Melissa reminded me that I am always changing up a pattern, why don't I add more chart, she said! So I hopped on Stitch Fiddle and made more rows of charts, trying to follow the motifs. A close observer might see where my flowers aren't as finely designed, but it was good enough for me in that feature! 
5. I loved the big buttons in the same color as the yarn in the pattern photo, but I couldn't find buttons the same color as my yarn. I tried some plum buttons but they weren't big enough. So I went super big with our tortoise shell buttons, slightly transparent, so that they pick up the color of the yarn! I did need to make my buttonholes larger so I am glad that I had them in hand when I was knitting my button band.
6. Speaking of the button band, Zanete has you pick up stitches for the button band and then on the next row reduce that number with decreases. Since my yarn was already thicker than the pattern called for, I only picked up that reduced number. My button band still was a little 'wavy' so I did a crochet chain inside the buttonhole side to keep it taught. I also added snaps in between those big buttons.
7. An innovation (to me at least, this is only my 2nd steeked project) was that the button band is picked up before you steek (cut) the sweater into a cardigan. this means that you could do the whole sweater thinking you might make a cardigan and then chicken out at the end and just always wear it buttoned up (which I will likely do anyway, but I was determined to cut it!). Zanete has great instructions and video help and I crocheted my stitches to secure the steek in a fingering green yarn as I knew enough that that yarn would become part of the sweater. But then I saw that it blended in TOO well for me; I wasn't going to be able to see it clearly enough to NOT cut it when it came time to cut up the middle, so I switched to a single ply pink.
8. After wearing it on repeat, I may go back in and make my sleeves a little longer.

So there are LOTS of ways to take sale yarn and make something beautiful, to take a pattern and make it your own! We're here to cheer you on!

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