There are a lot of knitting styles that you could consider classics, especially when it comes to sweaters. From ganseys and Fair Isle jumpers to Cowhican sweaters and lopi sweaters, there are so many great ways for a knitter to keep themselves and their family warm.
Lopi sweaters are a traditional style from Iceland, knit with a circular yoke with a colorwork design and using Icelandic wool. Knitters around the world can make these lovely and warm sweaters because this particular wool is pretty widely available.
The Petite Knitter’s lopi pattern has a design of crosses, snowflakes and diamonds, and color choices inspired by the sunset in the Arctic (she lives in archipelago islands).
The sweater’s design is boxy, and is worked seamlessly from the top down with a circular yoke. It is available in 11 sizes, with a chest measurement ranging from 32.25 to 73 inches. The intended positive ease is from 4.5 to 9.5 inches (positive ease means how much bigger the sweater is than your actual chest measurement).
As designed the project uses six colors of worsted weight yarn, but you could also use a self-striping yarn or multicolored yarn in the colorwork section if you didn’t want to make all those color changes by hand. There are a couple of projects on the pattern’s project page on Ravelry that show it worked with fewer colors if you want to check that out before you try it.
I have one Lopi sweater that I designed for my colorwork knitting book (in a heavier weight Icelandic wool that is very warm, even by my standards). It’s so fun to use this traditional material and feel a connection to all those knitters of the past who needed this hearty wool for warmth — and those who still do!
You can get the pattern on Ravelry.
[Photo: The Petite Knitter.]
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