Valley Yarns Harvest Pullover Knitting Pattern

Valley Yarns Harvest Pullover

What Is Being Made

The Valley Yarns Harvest Pullover is a seamless, top-down knitted sweater designed by Kirsten Hipsky. This pullover features a sophisticated stranded colorwork pattern worked primarily in the round, creating a cohesive design across the body and sleeves. The sweater is available in five finished sizes: 34", 38", 42", 46", and 50", making it suitable for a range of body measurements. The design showcases a multi-color lower sleeve pattern that cycles through complementary hues, creating visual interest and depth in the finished garment.

Techniques Used

This intermediate-level project employs several advanced knitting techniques that make it an engaging challenge for experienced knitters:

• Seamless construction: The sweater is worked entirely in the round using circular needles, eliminating the need for seaming and creating a polished, professional finish.
• Top-down construction: Knitting begins at the neckline and progresses downward toward the hem, allowing for easy fitting adjustments and the ability to try on the garment as it develops.
• Worked in the round: The body and sleeves are knitted circularly, which creates continuous fabric without seams and allows for consistent stitch tension throughout.
• Stranded colorwork: The lower sleeve features a repeating pattern using two colors per round, with colors alternating in a structured sequence across 80 rounds. This technique requires managing multiple yarn colors and maintaining even tension across color changes.
• Sleeve cap shaping: Strategic decreases at the beginning and end of specific rounds shape the sleeve cap to fit smoothly into the armhole, with the frequency of decreases varying by size.
• Underarm construction: For larger sizes, stitches are cast on at the underarm before joining the sleeve, creating a smooth transition between body and sleeve.

Stitches Used

The Valley Yarns Harvest Pullover utilizes fundamental knitting stitches combined to create texture and structure:

• Stockinette stitch (St st): The primary stitch used throughout the body and sleeves, creating a smooth, flat fabric with a distinctive V-pattern appearance on the right side.
• Knit and purl ribbing (k1, p1): Used for the cuff and hem finishing, creating an elastic, fitted edge that helps the sweater maintain its shape. The 1-inch ribbed sections provide stretch and recovery.
• Stranded colorwork stitches: The lower sleeve pattern uses knit stitches in two alternating colors per round across a multiple of 4 stitches, creating a geometric pattern that repeats and shifts throughout the 80-round sequence.
• Increase stitches: The pattern employs M1 (make one) increases, created by inserting the right needle into the strand running between stitches and knitting it to create a new stitch with minimal visible holes.
• Decrease stitches: Strategic decreases shape the sleeve cap and are worked at the beginning and end of rounds to create a tapered sleeve.

Materials

The Valley Yarns Harvest Pullover is designed to be knitted with Valley Yarns Stockbridge, a premium blend yarn composed of 50% superfine alpaca and 50% wool. This fiber combination provides softness, warmth, and durability. The yarn is supplied in 50-gram skeins, each containing 109 yards, allowing for precise yardage calculations based on size.

Color palette: The design uses five distinct colors from the Stockbridge line:

• Chocolate (MC—main color): 7 to 11 skeins depending on size, serving as the primary color for the body and the main color in the colorwork pattern
• Deep Red (CC1—contrast color 1): 1 skein
• Terra Cotta (CC2—contrast color 2): 1 skein
• Kiwi (CC3—contrast color 3): 1 skein
• Dark Green (CC4—contrast color 4): 1 skein

Needles required: The pattern calls for US 7 circular needles in 18