WIP Wednesday - Arbor Vitae

This picture is a little washed out.

Over the Christmas period I made quite a few presents for my close family, so I decided that it was time for a project for myself. I had swatched for the Arbor Vitae and it had been on my to make list, so it felt about right.

The pattern is by Joji Locatelli from the Pompom magazine issue 27. The yarn I've decided to use was three skeins I picked up when I was on a weekend adventure with my other half. We had a lovely weekend in Bath (where we had our first date many years ago, which ended in a rather unpleasant happening...) where I dragged Sam into A Yarn Story and picked myself up three skeins of Arranmore Donegal Heritage in the Rauri colourway, a 4-ply in a lovely dark red colour with little neps of different colours.

These were my holiday skeins and reserved for something nice for me. This jumper seemed perfect for it. I just have to hope that it will be enough.

Unfortunately with the Pompom magazine they tend to give the yardage for a given project in the number of skeins of the particular yarn they made it in. It's somewhat confusing, but can be worked out. I just wish it was a little bit easier.

The jumper was an odd construction, at least one I am not used to. I know I haven't knitted many jumpers, and the ones I have are either yolked or raglan but this one has the back knit separately from the front until the under arms, and the front knit in two before being joined. I'll admit I did enjoy the odd construction. It gave me something to concentrate on, and learning new things is always interesting and somewhat fun.

Trying it on, on the train.

The front and back yolk of the jumper went by pretty quickly, as I find nearly all of the jumpers I've knitted do. It gave me a lot more practice at cabling, and I'm really inclined to do more as I have really enjoyed the process. Maybe it's time for a cabled hat. I got most of the body done on my christmas holiday around the place, with plenty of long train journeys to get a good chunk done. I used the jog-less join technique for alternating my skeins. There is a brilliant tutorial on YouTube by Grace of Babbles Travelling Yarns, she explains is brilliantly and was where I first heard of the technique. I used it on the body of the jumper where the yarn changes, and is a great way to avoid sudden tone changes and to fade colours.

I finally finished the body of my jumper as well as the neckband on the train home after my Christmas and new year celebrations, so I am on to sleeve island for the foreseeable future. I'm okay with that, sleeves I find are just like really long socks, and they aren't that complicated. I found all the stocking stitch on the body hard going however, it felt like it would never end. I'm rather glad it did though. As I'm starting the sleeves I really do hope that I have enough yarn for this jumper, it's getting a little too close for my comfort. I was never a fan of yarn chicken, at least I do have a gauge swatch to undo if things get really desperate!