Lately, I’ve really been trying to look at a pattern and see more potential in it. I think it’s a good step for a knitter to be willing to take the bones of a pattern and make it their own. Take for instance this photo:

Never in a million years would I want to knit this sweater. But actually, I did. I’ve gotten to the point where I know that these sweaters (Knitting Pure and Simple) have good bones and I was fairly confident that I could change it into something beautiful.

This is what I did. I started with a solid colored yarn – an improvement already. Then I decided to work the raglan increases with a k1, yo rather than a kfb. After that I thought picot edging would be really great, so I worked that on every edge including the button bands. For the button bands, I only worked one row of garter stitch after picking up stitches then I worked the picot bind off. I decided to skip button holes and go with a single closure at the top, a sweet satin ribbon.

This is what I ended up with:

I think it’s a vast improvement to say the least AND I didn’t have to go and write a whole new pattern to get something totally different… I just changed a few things. THAT is my kind of knitting.