Stripes & Solids Sweater Pattern—Part 3: Graphics

Welcome back to the third and final installment of the Stripes & Solids Sweater! With your base sweater blocked and dried, you’re now ready for—that’s right—the stripes and solids.

Below you’ll find a few tips for getting clean duplicate stitches, plus the charts you can use to add the pool balls to your sweater.

These pool ball graphics can be added to any sweater with a 21 sts × 32 rows gauge—but if you’d like to make the same base I used, you can find the rest of the Stripes & Solids Sweater pattern in Part 1 and Part 2.

If you’re new to duplicate stitch, this video tutorial goes over the basics and how to follow a chart.

Tips

• Keep your needle moving in the same direction you’re working your stitches—that keeps them sitting clean and untwisted.

• Work the outer part of the ball first, then add the white circle (stitching across each row and skipping only where the number will go), and finally fill in the number.

• Aim for your duplicate stitches to match the size and tension of the knit stitches underneath. If they’re too loose, the stitched area won’t lie flat and the surrounding stitches will look slightly distorted.

Color Charts

Variations

For variation, you can shift the white circle within the base to give the illusion of a slightly turned ball. Below are grayscale versions of the variations I used, along with the designs I used for the tilted striped balls.

White center shifts (right, down, left) plus tilted stripe variations.

Once your graphics are finished, it really helps to give your sweater a light reblock (or even just a gentle steam). It’ll help the stitches settle into the fabric and even everything back out.

Here’s how mine turned out:

That's it for the Stripes & Solids Sweater! If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment — I’d be happy to help.