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The Branches and Buds Pullover is a gorgeous sweater designed by Carrie Bostick Hoge in Making No. 1.
The Branches and Buds Pullover is a top down sweater. After knitting the bottom up Lyngen sweater, I wanted to see how I liked a top down approach. I found it a lot of fun, since I worked the stranded yoke first. Then, as I worked the body, I could marvel at how pretty the yoke looked!
Based on my measurements, and my previous experience of my too-large Lyngen, I sized down to a 42″. To knit the sweater, I started with a 3.75 mm needle for the ribbed neckband. I knit 1″ of ribbing instead of the 1/2″ specified in the pattern since I wanted a closer fit around the neckline. I then used a 3.0 mm needle for the stranded colourwork. Many patterns recommend switching to a larger needle for colourwork due to tighter tension, and I tried it for this sweater, but I don’t think I really need to. I then switched to a 2.5 mm needle for the body of the pullover, adding waist shaping with five decrease and five increase rows (increasing 20 stitches per row).
To knit the sleeves, I used 3.0 mm bamboo dpns. My sleeves were longer than the 14″ specified in the pattern, while following the increases, not sure why. I then switched to 2.5 mm dpns for the ribbed sleeve cuffs.
I used light grey and light yellow Drops Baby Merino yarn for my Branches and Buds pullover. In total, I used about 6.5 skeins of grey, and 1/2 skein of light yellow. This yarn made the sweater really soft and squishy, and I’m surprised by the amount of drape that it has.
There’s a narrow band of garter stitch after the ribbing of the neck, cuffs, and hem, which I think is pretty and is a really nice detail. The actual pattern includes directions to use scrap yarn to make the ‘buds’ of this pullover, which also looks amazing. However, I decided to leave my yoke plain. For now!
Overall, it took me 3 weeks (minus a day) to knit the pullover. It then takes me a couple more days to weave in all the ends and block it!
You can purchase the pattern from Ravelry here. Also, take a look at the other projects knit in Ravelry – I really love some of those colour combinations!
That’s such a pretty pattern! I love sweaters knitted in the round like this one, I find them much more comfortable than the regular ones. I have a similar sweater knitted by my mother years ago and I can’t bear to part with it.
Thank you for sharing at The Really Crafty Link Party, and happy holidays!
Pinned.
Beautiful workmanship. The color combination and design is lovely. Thank you for sharing on You’re The Star Linky. Happy New Year, Kippi
This is absolutely stunning! I love the simple colors that make the gorgeous design stand out! 🙂 Lisa
Hi, I stumbled into this page and had a look at all those beautiful sweaters. I never see the join of your rounds. There is no gap between the start and the end of each round. How do you do to have a join without a gap?
Thank you! It’s knit in the round, so you knit in a continuous spiral! The start and end of the colourwork rounds are at the back, so they’re almost invisible. Hope this helps!