Winter Doodle Jumper

I had so much fun knitting the halloween doodle mittens that I wanted to do more colourwork. I had 10 balls of Drops Karisma in colourway 70 light blue grey that I got so long ago that I think it's been discontinued as I can't see it on the website anymore. I decided to make a christmas jumper with it. The winter doodle sweater pattern from Pacific Knit Co seemed ideal. It's a top down yoke sweater that uses the same doodle system as the mittens. Each motif has 12 or 24 stitches and the maths of the pattern means that the motifs can be easily plugged into the charts. The pattern gives really good instructions so it was easy to work out my size and how many stitches I'd have after each round of yoke increases. I combined some charts together so next I had to pick my colours.

I have a notebook where I stick in lengths of all the colours of Drops Karisma that I have in my stash and record the colourway. I also try to match each colour to a colouring pencil colourway. My colouring pencils are prismacolour ones. This makes it easier when trying to chart out what colours will go together. I had picked out a traditional christmas colour palette but when I put the colours with the blue grey main colour it didn't look very well. So then I picked a candy bright christmas colour palette and I thought that looked much better.

So with all that sorted I cast on in the middle of october. I did a provisional cast on and knit the ribbing and then folded it back on itself as I think that looks better. I placed lifelines after each colourwork section in case I made a mistake or the colours weren’t working. I found it quick to knit as I love seeing the motifs appear. The colours turned out pretty well, I like the little teacups and the reindeer the best. I finished the yoke and tried it on and it fit well so I kept knitting away on the body. I was away over christmas and didn't bring it with me. I started the sleeves after christmas and I have both sleeves finished now. I did the sleeves before I finished the main body of the jumper to make sure that I would have enough yarn. I'm now knitting the ribbing at the end of the body. As often happens with these projects I'll have to wait until the festive season rolls around again to wear it. But that will be something to look forward to.