Designing a Sweater for Fingering Wt. Yarn

I've been knitting some things, but just haven't felt it was of enough interest to post here on the blog. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to keep doing this. It just doesn't seem to be my thing. I need feed back. If there are only 2 people reading this then it's not worth my time.

 

I bought this Diaketo Diagold yarn in Osaka nearly 2 years ago with the idea of making myself a sweater from it.  I've looked for patterns using fine yarns, but not found much. I bought a book by Ann McCauley.  I like the book a lot and will definitely make a sweater or more from it. The book is Together or Separate.  But I tried doing a gauge swatch for one of the patterns that had a similar gauge to this yarn and it just wasn't working. I decided this yarn needed to be used with another color. I had this other teal colored yarn that was also a hand-wash wool. I thought the 2 would work together.

This photo is my gauge swatch. I have only one skein of the teal (300 yds), so I thought I could also add in some white, which I would have to buy, but that didn't seem to pose a big problem.

 

The lower pattern above came from a book on Setesdal sweaters

 

Setesdal Sweaters: The History of the Norwegian Lice Pattern

by Annemor Sundbø

 

 

 

 

 

 

and I used another pattern from a pattern booklet I have, which I bought in Norway. It was published by Gjestdal.

 

I worked that pattern with 3 instead of 4 colors in my swatch:

I was happy with that, so decided the sleeve cuff would be these two patterns. I cast on 72 stitches for a sleeve on #2 needles and did the 2-color part. I ordered the white yarn, but it will be a couple weeks before it comes in, so I will put this sleeve on a holder and start the second one and then wait till the white yarn comes in. In the mean time it would be good to design the rest of the sweater.

The sleeve so far:

 

Here's how the sleeve cuff would look with the facing turned under:

 

 

And that's really as much as I have now. I'm up to the part where I need the white on this one.

I think the body of the sleeve above the 3-color border will be done in a lice stitch with the white. There will probably be another border near the top and I'm thinking of joining the sleeves to the body and using a raglan construction.

 

I have the Stitch & Motif Maker software, which I use to print up the design for the color work. I'd love to have a sweater design program, but I think those are a lot more expensive and for as much as I would use it, I'm not sure it's worth it to me. I just do this for myself.

 

Any questions?  comments?