A Pretty Circular Yoke Sweater to Get You Through Winter

I was thinking the other day about how I really like circular yoke sweaters, and I hardly ever knit them. This is a style that’s worked in one piece from the top down, and you generally increase a lot of stitches over a few strategically placed rounds (as opposed to, say, a raglan sweater where you’re increasing every round or two).

The fun thing about them is they’re a great canvas for colorwork, whether you start with smaller motifs and make them bigger as you go down the yoke, or just for doing different bands of colorwork as you go.

The Floe Jumper from The Petite Knitter uses a variety of diamonds, zigzags and other little designs worked in three different colors to make the yoke fun and interesting to knit. The colors are inspired by a sunny winter day in the Arctic, but you can change it up with whatever colors you prefer.

This sweater is worked with DK weight yarn in four colors total, and it comes in 10 sizes, with garment chest measurements ranging from 31 to 66 inches, or 79 to 168 centimeters. The sweater is meant to be worn with 3 to 5 inches (7.5 to 13 cm) of positive ease.

As shown it has a cropped length and bracelet length sleeves, but the pattern includes customization options for the length of the sweater and the sleeves, as well as optional waist shaping.

You can buy the pattern (which is available in English and French) on Ravelry or direct from the designer.

If you’re looking for more circular yoke sweater knitting patterns or want to learn more about this style of garment, check out my review of the book Only Yoking by Olga Putano, which includes three base bodies with four different yoke options each to give you a range of designs to work in different weights of yarn.

[Photo: The Petite Knitter]

Fall will be here before we know it, and that means there are holidays coming right behind where we might be entertaining at home. It’s always fun to have a hand knit touch in your home for other people to see, and if you’re going to be in the kitchen all day you might as well have some nice knit dish cloths to use.

I love this little plaid hand towel from Darling Jadore. Use a little bit of leftover cotton yarn from another project for the plaid portion. It looks like the horizontal stripes are worked as you knit and the vertical stripes are done with duplicate stitch, making this a quick and easy project even newer knitters can make.

Combine garter stitch and an easy eyelet pattern worked sideways to make the Annette Dish Towel from Cluck Cluck Boots, which is meant to be reminiscent of flour sack towels. It calls for DK weight yarn and you can work it in one color or two (or even three!).

Add a little more texture with this set of kitchen towels from Whileberry Creative. They’re mostly worked in garter stitch with borders in easy knit/purl patterns, and you can work them in sport or worsted weight yarn.

Two of Wands Shop has another cute allover knit and purl pattern they call the Seersucker Textured Tea Towel. It’s an easy repeating pattern worked in worsted weight yarn, and there’s a chart in the pattern you can use, but don’t have to, if you want to practice knitting from a chart.

The Classic Cloth dish towel from Handmade Home by Connie is another one that can use a little leftover yarn in a contrasting color, or you could color block it our use stripes throughout the pattern. This one uses worsted weight yarn and another easy repeating knit purl stitch pattern.

If you like to hang your towel on the oven handle or elsewhere but it’s always falling off, try the Stay Put kitchen towel from Fancy Step Knits. This project is worked in garter stitch and includes a hole partway through so you can pull the towel through itself over a rod or handle. Stripes are optional but a nice addition.

Have you read?