When I started swatching with Cardo, a new yarn from Manos del Uruguay, I felt myself pulled in many different directions. On the one hand, the yarn has a traditional woolly feel that made me think of heirloom pieces. But the palette was giving me strong retro ’70s vibes. One day I’d be looking at Adidas tracksuits for inspiration, and then next I’d be flipping through my favourite book of charted Japanese twisted stitch patterns. I finally decided to embody the “why not both” meme, and worked out a flexible blank canvas of a shape that a knitter could easily make their own.

I called this the Octave Sweater because the sleeves include panels that are 12 stitches wide, giving you 12 “notes” to play with. Two options are provided for the center sleeve panel here, and you can find more ideas at my website.

However you decide to knit yours, the relaxed boxy shape fits a bit like a drop shoulder sweater (even though it’s not constructed that way) and wears like a comfy sweatshirt, especially if you make it oversized. This combination of bottom-up and centre-out construction is a favourite of mine because it just seems to fly by! No getting stuck on sleeve island here.