I went to Yarndale, a big yarn show in Skipton, North Yorkshire, for the first time in 2022. I had a lovely time because I was born and brought up in Skipton so I met a lot of people I knew or had connections with. At Yarndale I also met Ellie Stokeld, who has a flock of rare breed Border Leicester sheep literally in walking distance from my house on the edge of the North York Moors. How did I not know this before? The sheep are looked after until old age and their wool is lovely and soft. All Ellie’s yarn colours are named after local places. I walk up and around Roseberry Topping every week, so I had to buy the yarn colour named Roseberry Topping, and some other colours to go with it. I also used to work in Byland Road, so I had to buy the colour Byland. And I had to knit a jumper using these colours, to wear while out walking.
You can of course knit this in any DK yarn that gives gauge. It’s knitted top down, starting with some short row shaping for the back shoulders, picking up stitches for the fronts and joining in the round to knit the lower body from the underarms down. Stitches for the set in sleeves are picked up around the armholes and the sleeve caps formed with short row shaping. Bands of colourwork decorate the body and sleeves but these are easy, you only ever work with one colour per row, and the patterns are formed by slipping stitches. The garment is finished with a collar and a short front opening bordered with icord.
Instructions for this garment are given in written and charted form, with charts for the slip stitch panels. The pattern is written in 9 sizes from XS to 5XL.
I would describe this pattern as intermediate and photo tutorials are provided for various techniques used.