Sequence Knitting samples

I am knitting a sleeveless sweater that I have designed. My design follows an unusual constructions. First the top of the sweater is knitted. By top of the sweater I mean the region where the armholes go, which must be knitted flat. This region is knitted starting in the bottom of the back with a provisional cast-on and then going up over the shoulders and finishing with the bottom of the top of the front (I got that right!), just where the armholes end. Here the stitches on the needle are joined in the round with the stitches of the cast-on and the body of the sweater is knitted top-down and in the round.

Believe me, it sounds a lot more complicated than it actually is. My main reason to choose this design is precisely because I wanted to make this project as simple as possible. My inspiration for this design was Purl Soho’s Cable Back Shell. A nice, free pattern. Check it out! But I have changed a few important things. First and foremost, I am not sure how far my yarn is going, so I needed to knit top-down. My sweater will be as long as the yarn I have allows. I am hoping it will be short but not cropped, otherwise I will have to buy more yarn. Second, in the name of simplicity, I prefer knitting in the round and avoiding seams when I can. Third, I have three skeins of yarn in three different colours. So, in order to take advantage of the colours, I want a completely different design.

Because I have just enough yarn for the sweater (hopefully, fingers crossed!), stranded knitted is out of the question. It is going to be colour blocks, maybe (I have not decided yet) with a bit of stripes. I also want to add some texture for interest. There is one extra reason for texture, which is to avoid curling, particularly around the collar and underarms. For this reason I cast-on for a swatch and started trying out a few sequence patterns. Here are my results.

Flat Welden (on the left). This is done using the sequence k2 p2 k1 p1 in a multiple of 6 plus 2 stitches. Welden is supposed to be knitted in the round, but I forgot that and got a completely different pattern.

The actual Welden pattern can be converted to be knitted flat, but it then becomes a 3-row pattern. I have also tried that one (on the right). On a multiple of 6 stitches:
Row 1: k2 p2 k1 p1, repeat to end of row.
Row 2: p2 k1 p1 k2, repeat to end of row.
Row 3: k1 p1 k2 p2, repeat to end of row.

The sequence k2 p1 in a multiple of 3 plus 1 stitches (on the left).

Finally, my favourite, the sequence k3 p1 in a multiple of 4 plus 1 stitches (on the left).