Swatching for a new sweater in Henry’s Attic Peruvian Tweed 100% alpaca from Catnip Yarns (scroll down about halfway). I get 6 stitches to the inch, which is sport weight, not really “light worsted,” so I’m holding two strands together in hopes that this can be a reasonably quick knit. In stockinette stitch, 2 strands together, I get 5 stitches to the inch. That’s worsted weight.

Now this being alpaca, it lacks the elasticity of wool. When the yarn stretches, it tends to stay stretched. The nature of knit fabric is to bounce back a little, but if the yarn gets gradually longer, so does the fabric. Two strategies I know of to mitigate against this tendency are (1) use a slip-stitch pattern; and (2) use a twisted-stitch (knit through the back loop) pattern. I’m trying out the latter here. The Dura-Europos pattern I originally had my eye on is a twisted-stitch pattern; that’s why I thought of it for this stuff.

I adapted the Dura-Europos I motif as an allover pattern. After knitting this swatch several times (I kept pulling it out and making further adjustments), I am very clear that I do not care to knit this throughout the entire sweater; it’ll take years. But I could do a panel of one repeat. Here’s the swatch:

This is one-and-a-half repeats. You can see here that the bottom of this motif “takes up” — it makes the bottom of the fabric curve upward. That’s because the part of the motif that’s at the beginning of the pattern uses increases in the center.

In the above swatch, where I’ve half-dropped the motif, you can see that I’ve smoothed out that upward curve using short rows in that part of the motif, but on the left side, the part of the motif that has decreases in the center, the lower edge curves downward. I didn’t use any short rows there. I did in an earlier incarnation of the swatch, below the garter stitch ridges, in hopes of pushing the motif edge up, and I didn’t like it. So I think what I have to do is make my short rows wider, still under the part of the motif that’s at the right.

The sides take in a little, too, but I think with some more solid fabric at the right, it won’t be so bad; the left side of the main motif, to the left of center on the swatch, is okay.

Here’s another swatch, checking out two “ground” patterns, also using twisted stitches:

The first thing to notice is the difference in row gauge! Obviously, I have to compare these two ground patterns with the motif swatch above to see which is closer to it in row gauge. Can’t do it right now, because I washed this swatch after scanning it; need it dry to measure it. I can tell you that the row gauge difference is still obvious after washing.

The second thing to notice is the biasing. This may be partly due to the strand running through the stitches at the end in lieu of binding off. The biasing seems much less pronounced after washing, but I won’t really know until it’s dry.

Another point worth making: This alpaca is fuzzy. Stitch definition is not all that hot (it’s exaggerated in these scans, it’s not really this crisp). One would be well within one’s rights to criticize the choice of twisted stitch patterns on this basis. However, my choice stems from the inelastic property of alpaca. So I’m going with twisted stitch patterns despite the relatively poor stitch definition. I’m leaning toward the ground pattern on the upper left, because its stitch definition is a little better than that of the one on the right.

Also: I generally work in the biggest possible pieces rather than seam stuff together. But side and underarm seams might well help reduce stretching. So for the first time in I don’t know how many years, I’ll be knitting a sweater in separate pieces and sewing it together. Maybe even the button band and collar (this is going to be a shawl-collar cardigan).

Need maybe one more thing to separate the main motif from the ground pattern, like a small cable or something. Or just a single twisted knit stitch flanked by purls. Hope to cast on by Saturday. If I work on it steadily, I could have it done by the end of November. However, I have other knitting plans for November as well (mwah-ha-ha…), so target completion date is around Christmas.