Hilla

I've grown old. Or at least grown up. I'm into hiking and broccoli. And now, even cloudberries even though for all my life I've been convinced that they are just too sour for my taste. Speaking of cloudberries, I designed a new sweater called Hilla. It means cloudberry in Finnish.

What: Hilla / Own pattern

How: Circular needles 3.5 mm and 2.5 mm

From: Uschitita Merino Single in colors Braveheart + Owl + Grounded + Moccacino, 96 + 75 + 69 + 84 g

Fading has long been a trend in the knitting realm. As usual, I'm joining the party late - but nevertheless, I'm joining in! I finally got around to designing and knitting my very own fade sweater. I have designed a gradient cargidan, Utu, but fading is a bit different. In a gradient, you're using different shades of the same color. In fading, you can use totally different colors as long as there are some speckles etc. to join the colors together.

I bought the yarns last spring at Edinburgh Yarn Fest. I had wanted to try Uschitita's yarns for a long time and now, I took my timing selecting the perfect quartet. Unexpectedly, I ended up with this yellowish color scheme.

Last winter, I designed a DK weight brioche sweater with these lovely little vables running down from the shoulders to the wrists. And ever since, I've been asked by a friend if I could some day design something else with the cute cables but leave out the scary brioche. I finally got around to it. This one's for you, Jenni!

The sweater starts off with narrow shoulder flaps with cables. Those are left on holders while stitches are picked up from their edges to work the back and front. Once the back and front meet at the underarm, the rest of the body is worked in the round.

Fear not! Even though the sweater looks like it's reverse stockinette stitch, the body is worked inside out - so endless rounds of knitting with no purl in sight. Though, the sleeve are worked on the right side with reverse stockinette stitch because of the cables.

The sweater itself is very simple and relaxing knit. The only exciting part happens right at the beginnig with the shoulder flaps but those are quick to make. The rest of the sweater might be even boring if it wasn't for the fading of colors. Waiting for the next fade keeps things interesting.

The pattern is designed for a fade of four colors and includes detailed instructions on how and when to work the fades. There are also calculations for how much you should have yarn left upon finishing the body so you won't run out of yarn for the sleeves etc. The keep the color changes as neat as possible, the first fade happens once the back and front have been joined to work in the round. Therefore the bigger sizes require more than one skein of color 1.

I'm eagerly awaiting for this weekend's craft fair at Tampere, Finland. It's a great opportunity to find your favorite color quartet for Hilla sweater. I'm also giving a 20% discount to the pattern until the end of the week if you use the code "cloudberry" in your Ravelry cart.