A seasonally appropriate sweater project with an inappropriate name.... you'll have to wait for it as there is some backstory.
I've been doing a lot of knitting lately and finished this autumnal sweater just in time for autumn weather.
The project was inspired by the yarn. In August I was hanging out with my sister and her friends. We went to a local yarn shop, I set my eyes on the colorful Spincycle Yarns Dream State yarns and I fell in love. I wanted to buy some, but only wanted to do so with a project in mind.
I ended up landing on Drea Renee Knits pattern, The Throwover. The Throwover is a worsted weight pullover sweater knit from the top down with a deep ribbed collar that transitions into a round, colorwork yoke that uses Dream State.
This particular project hit the sweet spot of a) using stash yarn, b) allowing me to buy new yarn and c) using a new-to-me technique (colorwork) combined with a familiar technique (top down/round yoke construction). So satisfying!
For the main color, I have had this Brooklyn Tweed Shelter yarn in the olive-y green colorway "Tent," (which doesn't seem to exist anymore) in my stash for almost six years! It was perfect for this project and I still have some leftover for a hat or something.
For the yoke, after consulting with my sister and her friend, I landed on Dream State in Nostalgia, a reddish purple, Rusted Rainbow, an orange-y, reddish shade, and Sunset Strip, a bright orange/yellow/pink mix. We (well, my sister's friend, Leah... thank you, Leah!) dubbed this color combo "leaf peeper's wet dream," and I will never not call this sweater that.
This was my first colorwork knitting and first time using a knitting chart. I've done stripes before but not the stranded colorwork with the floats. It was not as difficult as I expected! The hardest part was just making sure I didn't put too much tension on the colorwork. I think this pattern is a great first colorwork pattern since it's not a super complicated design.
My colorwork was a little bit lumpy right after knitting, I think mainly because the yoke increases are focused in the solid green parts, rather than spread out throughout the colorwork. But blocking smoothed it out. I did a little bit of this method for beating the colorwork into submission. I just used the heel of my hand, though.
I knit size 5. The pattern goes up to size 10 with a finished bust circumference of 66 inches. I'm quite happy with the fit of the body; I wish the sleeves were a little bit looser.
The only change I made to the pattern was to add some of the colorwork to the bottom of the sleeves before adding the ribbing at the cuff. I love the little pop of color at the sleeves!
I'm really happy with this project- it was a lot of fun and very satisfying. And I'm so happy I finished it in time to take some leaf peeper photos.
