After three posts on the history of the yoke sweater, this one and the next are about the four I’ve knitted myself. In the last post I found that 77% of the yoke patterns on Ravelry from the 2020s are written top-down, but three of my four were knitted bottom-up, and that is the way I prefer.
Looking back, I chose most of them the same way. I tend to pick patterns with a lot of projects on Ravelry, not necessarily the ones in fashion at the time, and if a pattern is written for men and many people have made it, I trust that it’s probably a good one. After three posts of counting yoke patterns on Ravelry, I find it funny that I chose my own sweaters by looking at the same numbers.
In this post I’ll go through the first two, in the order I made them: Cobblestone, my first yoke, knitted bottom-up, and Anker’s Sweater, my only top-down one. Next week I’ll cover the other two, and tell you why the one from the 1970s is my favourite.
Cobblestone (2022–23)
Cobblestone is a pullover by Jared Flood, first published in 2007 and made more than 3,600 times on Ravelry. It is knitted bottom-up in the round, and the yoke is worked entirely in garter stitch, with wrap-and-turn short rows to raise the back. I had made two plain raglans and a slipover before it, and I knew Jared Flood was a designer people trusted.
I made it in Nako Orenda, an aran-weight blend of 80% acrylic and 20% wool, which I bought at the Finnish discount chain Tokmanni, about €10 for 500 g. I had only recently picked up knitting again and was nervous about spending more on yarn in case I messed it up. I had planned to make a blanket with it, then worked out I had enough for this sweater, which ended up using 403 g.
Garter stitch in the round means purling every other round, which I didn’t enjoy, and any uneven tension is easy to see in it (the acrylic probably didn’t help). It was also my first time using magic loop, on cheap needles, and I was so unhappy with the tension on the sleeves that I put the sweater down for a while. In the end it took four months, from December 2022 to April 2023. The wrap-and-turn short rows were also more visible than I expected.
It’s a bit small and not the neatest sweater I’ve made, so I wear it at home on days when I’m lounging around. It is very cosy, the garter stitch is squishy, and I’m surprised how attached I’ve become to it. Knitting it, I also found that bottom-up construction has a lot of advantages. At the time I had seen people say it was harder, but as a beginner I found it was nothing to be scared of.
Anker’s Sweater – My Boyfriend’s Size (2023)
