Project:
Pattern: Lakes Pullover | Designer: Ozetta / Hailey Smedley
Yarn: Cotton to the Core Worsted by KnitPal purchased on Amazon | Colorway: Grape Purple
Date Started: Jan 12, 2004 | Date Finished: Jan 22, 2024
Construction: Top Down, Drop-Shoulder, Saddle-Shoulder, In-the-Round, Short Row Shaping
The Ozetta Lakes Pullover is a top-down, drop-shoulder worsted weight sweater. It features a saddle shoulder design and uses short row shaping in both the front and back of the neckband. The finished sweater has an oversized, boxy fit with chunky ribbing. As with all of the Ozetta patterns I have made, the directions were very easy to follow and the provided YouTube links were helpful in clarifying any confusion I might have had.
I made mine a bit longer in both the sleeves and body and am overall pleased with the finished garment. The yarn was fun to work with and I found the whole project very enjoyable. It was on my needles for a total of ten days.
Notes:
01-12-2024
Just got my yarn delivery right before the snow started. Perfect timing for a snow storm knit! I love the purple!
Gauge on 8s = 20/28
Gauge on 9s = 18.5/26
Gauge on 10s = 18/24
Stitch count is correct on 10s, row count is correct on 8s. I think I may split the difference and use the 9s. It gave the nicest fabric feel. Size small has plenty of ease for me so that should be okay.
01-13-2024
Did all the pick-up shoulder work. It was super fincky to pick-up the correct amount of stitches evenly. I took my time and redid sections until I got a nice smooth pick-up each time. It really slowed me down in the knitting but looks great now.
01-14-2024
First ball of yarn ran out 3 rows shy of joining the body in the round.
01-15-2024
After I joined in the round, I started alternating skeins. I tried helical knitting for several inches but I felt like I could tell where the row kept moving to. After trying several different tricks I decided that I didn’t care for it and ended up ripping several inches back and just doing my normal switch every couple rows at the BOR.
01-16-2024
Finished the body and waist band as directed in the pattern but did not cast off. I think I may want to go back and add another inch to the stockinette portion of the body length, so I set it aside and switched to the sleeves. I will decide on body length once the sleeves are done.
01-20-2024
One week in….
Body done but resting. I might go back and add another 1-2 inches of stockinette.
One sleeve done. Second picked up, completed short rows and a few rounds of decreases. I did add a few extra rows of stockinette to the first sleeve (7 rows after the last decrease), but I’m not sure if that was a good idea. I will try it on again when I get the second sleeve done with decreases. I may end up going back and shortening the first sleeve. We’ll see.
01-21-2024
I finished the second sleeve. I decided I liked the longer length and made the second to match. Somehow on the second sleeve I missed a couple of the decreases at the end of the row… was just knitting along…. ugg… I pulled back to the last one missed and just worked the other in halfway between decreases towards the cuff sleeve, since the first one I missed was all the way back near the pickup row. You can’t tell.
The collar looks good. I did reinforce a few of the stitches along the pickup edge since they wanted to stretch out.
I also decided to pull out the waist band and add more length to the body since I wear more mid-rise jeans. I was afraid there was going to be a gap at my waist, especially in the back. The sweater seems to want to hang lower in the front.
I added a full seven rows around and an extra set of 8 short rows in the back. I think the length will be much better for me. All I have left now is to reknit the waist band.
01-23-2024
Done. I’m glad I added the extra length to the sleeves and body.
I wish the neckline sat a little lower in the front. I find that any of the modern patterns I’ve made recently that feature the fold over crew neckline always seem to sit too high in the front for my liking. They just seem so bulky.
I’m glad I went with the small. Chest ended up at about 42 inches wide, but will probably loosen up a bit more. Definitely oversized.
The finished sweater is super warm.
Overall, the pattern was fun to knit and easy to follow. I could see making another for someone else. It’s not the most flattering shape for my body type, but I will definitely get a lot of use out of it on these super cold days.
Note about the yarn:
The yarn was fun to work with. It satisfied my hand dyed wool yarn envy. Being very allergic to animal fibers can be super frustrating as a knitter.
The Cotton to the Core seems to be made up of a chainette white cotton base, filled with unspun acrylic fiber. There were a few knots… maybe 4 in total in the five skeins that I used. There were also a few chunks of fiber that looked tweedy but weren’t consistent so I just pulled them out (maybe 4-5 total). The halo made the yarn super grippy… so frogging was a challenge. I had to pull apart the yarn in spots, but that does mean stitches didn’t drop when I went back to pick them up.
I used every last bit of five skeins without frogging my swatch and two extra rows from the sixth… but I could have gotten away without touching the sixth if I had to.
There was some variation between the skeins in terms of how fuzzy they looked and coloring, so I did alternate skeins in the straight stockinette areas. I didn’t worry about it when I was doing short rows or working the ribbing.
Color-wise… this purple looks different depending on lighting. The base seems blue/white with a reddish halo. It leans more cool than warm in daylight, but lamp light makes it look warm.
