Knit a Pastel Plaid Sweater

There’s just something about plaid that makes it a classic for any time of year in just about any colors you can imagine.

The lines on the Piet Sweater from kolibri by johanna give a modern take on plaid with bright, poppy colors and a hint of pastel.

The project is worked with two fingering weight yarns held together (an alpaca and a mohair for a bit of fuzz) or you can use any DK weight yarn that gets you the correct gauge.

The pattern is worked from the top down, mostly in the round, and uses short row shaping to shape the sleeves, which are knit directly onto the body and cuffed with ribbing to emphasize the balloon shape.

Horizontal stripes are knit as you go, while the vertical stripes are added at the end with a crochet hook.

It is meant to be oversized but also cropped, though you can adjust the length if you like.

The pattern comes in seven sizes, and uses a main color and four contrasting colors. The actual chest measurement of the finished sweater ranges from 41 to 55.5 inches, or 104-141 cm, and is meant to be worn with 6 to 8 inches/15 to 20 cm of positive ease.

The designer rates the project as for advanced knitters, but if you have some garments under your belt and are comfortable with short rows and a little bit of crochet you should be fine.

The pattern is available in English, French and German on Ravelry. There’s also a cardigan version of the same style of sweater if you’d rather have a cardigan than a pullover. The sample of that one has a much more toned down, pastel color palette so it’s interesting to see how the pattern looks in different yarns. (There are quite a few projects for both sweaters on Ravelry if you want to see how it works in different colors.)

Photo: kolibri by johanna

I guess I must have had this pattern on my mind, because I had chosen this log cabin blanket recipe to write about, promptly forgot about it and a couple of weeks later started knitting a log cabin blanket using all my pink yarn.

It might stay pink if it makes it to baby blanket sized, or I might add in some pastel green and blue, too, to make a bigger blanket. We’ll see. I’m also holding several strands of yarn together to make a kind of bulky yarn, which means it’s deeply satisfying how much yarn is used even as the project is still relatively small.

In Kristen Finlay’s version, DK weight yarn scraps (or fingering/sock yarn held double) are used to make a simple scrappy log cabin blanket that’s lighter weight than my version. Log cabin is a great technique for knitters of any skill level because it’s worked in garter stitch. The only not completely basic technique you need for log cabin knitting is picking up stitches.

If you’ve never worked a log cabin knitting project before, this is a good introduction, and it is really nice to use all your yarn scraps in one big project you’ll use for years to come.

If you use a lot of DK weight yarn you can keep building on it whenever you finish a project, or if you use more worsted weight you can do the same thing with it, it will just be a little bigger starting out than the pattern calls for. How big it gets is totally up to you.

I have really been enjoying working on my log cabin project, and it’s my current sitting at my desk and need a break knit (do you have one of those or is it just me?).

Ready to start your own log cabin blanket knitting project? You can grab the free pattern from Kristen Finlay on Ravelry.

Need more log cabin inspiration? Check out more log cabin knitting patterns.

[Photo: Kristen Finlay]

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