DIY: Knit Strange Brew Pullover by Tin Can Knits

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I knit our dad a Strange Brew pullover, a design by Tin Can Knits. This is the third colourwork yoke sweater I knit by Tin Can Knits, after the Mountain Mist and Compass pullovers.

I knit size Adult Men’s Large to fit my dad’s chest size of 43″. He recently became more interested in wool, even though he’s been wearing my Oma’s handknit socks for decades. He also feels cold more easily than our mom, so while she doesn’t need a wool sweater and likes to open windows during the winter, our dad tends to get chilly. Wool is great to wear when he goes fishing, as it stays warm when it gets wet. That’s why traditionally fishermen wore woolen ganseys!

I cast on while visiting our cousin for the Curve Lake pow wow on September 21. I cast off on October 21. Even though I was half-heartedly working on two other projects, I was still able to finish this aran-weight pullover in a month.

To start, I used a 2.5 mm needle to cast on neck and knit a 2×2 rib for about four to five centimetres. Then I switched to 3.0 mm needles to knit the body using metal circular needles. After knitting a few pullovers, I’ve realized I prefer top-down construction. I like being able to admire the colourwork yoke while I work on the body.

I followed the Strange Brew recipe to knit the sweater, but added a bit of extra colourwork at the hem and sleeve cuffs. For the sleeves, after the decreases, I knit 1 round. Then I knit three rows of colourwork, knit 1 round, and then knit 2×2 rib for 15 rows. To keep the cuffs stretchy, I used a yarn over cast off. Although I used my metal circular needles for the body, I used 3.75 mm bamboo needles for the sleeves because bamboo is grippy and my gauge is tighter on bamboo.

I added three rows of colourwork at the sleeves before the cuff ribbing. I also added 13 rows of colourwork to the hem before the ribbing. The colourwork pattern on the yoke was from the Strange Brew book, but it doesn’t have a name. Our dad picked the pattern, and wanted blue as the main colour. I chose all the other stranded colourwork colours. I like how the dark purple and teal are of very different values to give good contrast. Also, the white and grey are close enough in colour to act like shading in the main yoke.

Get the Strange Brew pullover pattern on Ravelry here.