Trendsetter Yarns Impress - Boxed Rib Pullover with Rolled Collar

Trendsetter Yarns Impress - Boxed Rib Pullover with Rolled Collar

What Is Being Made

This is a boxy-style pullover sweater designed to be worn casually. The garment features a distinctive rolled collar and is constructed using a combination of textured stitch patterns that create visual interest through alternating stripes of boxed ribs and stockinette stitch. The sweater is available in six sizes ranging from Small to 2X, with bust measurements from 37 inches to 57 inches (including ease). The design was created by Barry Klein and uses Trendsetter Yarns Impress yarn, which is a shaded yarn that varies naturally from skein to skein.

Techniques Used

This knitting project employs several fundamental construction techniques:

• Bottom-up construction: The sweater pieces are knitted from the cast-on edge upward, beginning with the ribbed cuff and working toward the armholes and shoulders.
• Worked flat: The body and sleeves are worked flat on straight needles rather than in the round, creating seams that are joined together.
• Seamed assembly: Individual pieces (back, front, and sleeves) are knitted separately and then sewn together using mattress stitch or similar seaming techniques.
• Stripe patterning: The sweater features alternating stripe patterns that create a boxed visual effect, requiring attention to pattern changes as the piece grows and stitch counts decrease during shaping.
• Armhole and neckline shaping: Bind-offs and decreases are used to shape the armholes and create the neckline opening, with different shaping amounts for each size.

Stitches Used

The pattern incorporates three primary stitch patterns that work together to create the finished design:

• Ribbed Stitch (Rib St.): An alternating knit and purl pattern (K1, P1) worked row by row, with subsequent rows worked "as they appear." This elastic stitch is used for the initial 1½-inch cuff at the bottom of the sweater, providing a fitted edge that helps the garment retain its shape.
• Stockinette Stitch (Stock St.): The fundamental knit fabric created by knitting all stitches on the right-side rows and purling all stitches on the wrong-side rows. This smooth, flat stitch forms one component of the striped pattern.
• Reverse Stockinette Stitch (Rev. Stock St.): The inverse of stockinette stitch, created by purling on right-side rows and knitting on wrong-side rows. This stitch creates a bumpy, textured surface and is used in alternating blocks to form the distinctive boxed pattern.

The stripe pattern alternates between two sections: Stripe 1 combines blocks of reverse stockinette and stockinette stitches in a specific sequence (3 stitches reverse stockinette, followed by repeating 5 or 6-stitch blocks depending on size), worked for 10 rows; Stripe 2 is pure stockinette stitch, also worked for 10 rows. These two stripe patterns repeat throughout the entire body of the sweater, creating a continuous boxed visual texture.

Materials and Tools

The sweater is knitted using Trendsetter Yarns Impress, a shaded yarn available in color #101. The pattern requires 3 to 5 skeins (150 grams each) depending on the size being made. The yarn is worked on U.S. knitting needles in sizes #5, #6, and #7. Size #5 needles are used for the initial ribbed cuff, while size #6 needles are used for the main body pattern work. The gauge is established at 22 stitches over 4 inches when working stockinette stitch with the #6 needle, which is essential for achieving the correct finished measurements. Because Trendsetter Impress is a naturally shaded yarn that varies from skein to skein, the pattern notes that perfect color matching across all pieces is impossible; instead, knitters are advised to use yarn consistently from either the inside or outside of the cake skein to maintain visual continuity within each piece.