Published with permission from KC Green.

Updates:
November 2024 - I know I said I’d do sizes ages ago but I needed a break from staring at these charts, and then got sidetracked by existential dread and a general questioning of priorities. But I see y’all are back here. Why? Was it the election?? Anyway maybe I will do those sizes after all, who knows.

March 2023 - @Teleuteskitty has very kindly graded this pattern for me but I still need to edit the charts to make the images work for different sizes. I can’t guarantee a delivery time but if you want different sizes (especially larger sizes) watch this space!

Version 1.1 Updated 14 Jan 2023. Made a few minor fixes, mostly involving photos and labels that should have been there but weren’t, but most importantly I fixed a small mistake in the charts for the medium size sleeves. Please re-download your pattern, especially if you were planning to make the medium sleeves.

PLEASE NOTE: I’ve changed the neck hole to be smaller than what you see in the photo. This change is untested but should result in a more reasonable neckline.

Well it took a while but I finally finished this sucker. Featuring 3 full pages of instructions (with photos) on how to weave in all those ends. I wish I was kidding.

What’s the pattern gauge? What needles and yarn do I need?

I knit this sweater on 4.5mm needles with 10 ply cotton yarn and a gauge of 18 stitches and 27 rows per 4 x 4” square. The resulting sweater has a bust of 48” (122cm) and is 16” (40.5cm) from hem to underarm. You can adjust this size somewhat by adjusting the gauge but I don’t recommended going too crazy. I have included some tables in the pattern file to help you figure out what gauge you need for what size.

I’ve added a photo of myself wearing the jumper to give a better idea of the fit. I am about 170cm (5’7”) and 60kg (132 lbs) with a 37” (94cm) bust so I have about 11” (28cm) of positive ease. As you can see the neck hole is a bit too big and the sleeves are too long (I have included options for shorter sleeves). Most of my male friends who have tried on the sweater have found the sleeves to be the right size though.

This sweater was made to fit a specific friend so that’s why it’s the size that it is. I am pretty done with this pattern at the moment but one day I may revisit it to make it more sizes.

As for what yarns you need, this was what I used, totalling 1076m (1176 yards). However, the amount you need will vary depending on your gauge. Also, I was VERY economical with my yarn, so you may need more than this even if you have the same gauge.

Yellow
Scheepjes Cahlista
Yellow Gold
340m (371.8 yds)

Orange
Scheepjes Cahlista
Tangerine
255m (278.9 yds)

Grey
Paintbox Yarns Cotton Aran
Granite Grey
170m (185.9 yds)
(Note this was my total for my original version with an overly large neck hole. Someone has kindly pointed out that the current version with a normal size neck hole requires more grey because duh, I guess. They used 300m)

Light green
Scheepjes Cahlista
Willow
161.5m (176.6 yds)

Dark green
Rico Design Creative Cotton Aran
Ivy
22.1m (24.2 yds)

Light brown
Scheepjes Cahlista
Hazelnut
44.2m (48.3 yds)

Dark brown
Scheepjes Cahlista
Black Coffee
6.8m (7.4 yds)

Black
Rico Design Creative Cotton Aran
Black
73.1m (80.0 yds)

White
Scheepjes Cahlista
Bridal White
3.4m (3.7 yds)

This project requires pretty specific colours of yarn. If you don’t want to use what I used, here are some manufacturers I’ve found that make yarns in a large number of colourways (these may or may not be appropriate for your project):

Knit Picks
Paintbox
Rico Creative
Scheepjes
Hobbii
Jamieson’s
Harrisville

And no, it doesn’t have to be cotton. I just used cotton because it tends to come in more colours. Please suggest other yarn options if you know of any.

How hard is this pattern? I’ve never knit a sweater/intarsia/colourwork/seamed a sweater before, is that ok? Is this a good first project?

First of all, this is an absolutely terrible first project. Probably one of the worst ones you could pick. Difficulty-wise, I’d say it’s more fiddly than hard but if you’ve never knit intarsia you’re probably gonna have tension issues. It’s also not that well documented. I mean, I did my best but I’ve never written a pattern in my life and there were no testers or editors involved so there’s a bunch of stuff you may just have to figure out on your own, so ideally you want to be a confident knitter who isn’t scared off by that.

Most important things: You MUST be able to knit with consistent gauge. There’s no such thing as “knit until sleeve measures x inches” in this pattern. Everything is a set number of stitches. The stitches need to be the same size or your measurements will be wrong.

You MUST be ok with doing an insane amount of intarsia. If you’ve never done intarsia before, I recommend trying a smaller project first.

If you’ve never made a sweater… eh, that’s fine. It helps if you’ve done some other large project though, just so you know you have the patience required.

The embroidery is just backstitch. It should be easy even for people who’ve never done embroidery (like me!)

The seaming is kind of a pain in the ass, but not more so than for any other seamed sweater (well maybe slightly more so, depending how consistent your gauge is).

I like this sweater in theory but that’s way too much intarsia for me, are there any other options?

Sure, you can knit the charted image for the front panel only, or only the front and back, and knit the rest of the sweater in plain stockinette.

Why do you keep mixing metric and imperial units?

It’s just my habit haha sorry! I use metric for most things but I measure garment dimensions in inches. I’ve included conversions for all numbers I think. It’s more egalitarian if everyone is confused, no?

I’ll add more info as I think of it. Feel free to message me if you have questions.