A Sweater to Knit for Warmer Days

As a person who is pretty much always cold, I wear sweaters throughout the year. Sometimes I will wear lighter weight sweaters, or even short-sleeved sweaters, but there is often a sweater nearby even when it’s hot outside.

The Elton Pullover by Joji Locatelli is a great sweater pattern to knit for warmer weather, even if you’re not a person who is cold all the time.

It combines a fingering weight yarn and a lace weight mohair, but not in the way you might expect. Instead of both strands of yarn being held together while you work, this project has you work them in stripes. That means you end up with more solid bands of fabric where the fingering weight yarn is used, and fuzzy, see-through stripes where you are knitting with the mohair.

The textural contrast is a lot of fun, and the airflow provided keeps you from getting too hot when you wear it.

The pattern is a pullover version of a previously published cardigan pattern, so check that out, too, if a cardigan is more your style.

The pullover version is available in 10 sizes with chest measurements ranging from 30 to 60 inches. It’s designed to be worn with about 16 inches of positive ease, so the actual sweater measurements range from 44 to 80 inches. Of course if your chest measurement is larger than 44 you can adjust the level of ease by working a different size.

The design features a crew neck and drop shoulders, and is worked in the round from the top down. It’s available in both English and Spanish. You can get the patterns on Ravelry for the pullover and the cardigan version.

[Photo: Joji Locatelli.]

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Beautiful people and beautiful sweaters combine in Lasse L. Matberg’s Viking Knits. The book includes more than 40 Scandinavian inspired knits for men, women and children featuring textured stitches and colorwork.

Matberg is known as The Viking and has worked as a chef, naval officer, fitness instructor and model, as well as being on a couple of reality TV shows. He comes from a long line of makers and his book was first published in Norwegian in 2021 and has since come out in an English version.

The book is divided into sections including everyday sweaters, knits for the great outdoors, stylish knitwear, Norse sweaters and accessories. Some of the patterns use the same designs in different versions for men, women and children. I counted seven projects rated for beginners, 19 for intermediate knitters and 17 for experienced knitters. The more difficult patterns tend to have allover colorwork or stitch patterning.

The pattern stitches and colorwork are shown in charts, with a little bit of text to tell you how to make the garment. Most of the book is sweaters, but there are also hats (sometimes coordinating with sweaters), scarves and a couple of sitting mats.

You can check out all the patterns on Ravelry. Some of my favorites are the more basic ones, such as the Power Sweater, a close-fitting (sized for men) ribbed sweater; the Heart Sweater, a raglan with allover lice stitch; and the Midsummer Sweater, with textured stripes and a henley neckline. I also like the Breeze designs (there are versions for men, women and children) that have colorwork diamonds on them.

Sizing on the garments varies, but there are six sizes for the men’s patterns (noted as small through XXL and then Lasse sized), six for women (XS to XL) and three for children (age 2-4, 6-8 and 10-12).

The yarns used in the book aren’t available in the United States but you can find suppliers here if you want to use the same yarns. Otherwise the book gives a lot of details about yarn content and gauge so you should be able to find good substitutes wherever you live.

If you have Norwegian or Scandinavian heritage or just like the look of cozy textured or colorful sweaters, this book is a lot of fun, and the eye candy is pretty great, too.

About the book: 192 pages, hardcover, 43 patterns. Published in English in 2023 by Search Press. Suggested retail price $29.95.

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