Knitting a Briony Pullover: Yoke Completed

For my first attempt at knitting a jumper I was considering knitting a very simple one so that it wouldn't be too tricky, but starting out simple isn't really what I tend to do. When I first started knitting I went straight from knitting scarves to knitting socks and I think everyone was surprised that the socks actually turned out pretty well. I did however spend a lot of time debating whether to knit a jumper that I really liked the design of or a very simple one which would be difficult to mess up. I think what made the decision so difficult is that jumpers do take a lot of yarn to produce, so if I got it really wrong I could potentially waste a fair amount of money. In the end I decided that I should choose a design I really loved, so that I would have the motivation to get it finished. I chose to knit a Briony Pullover by Born & Raised knits. This is a design I originally saw on Instagram and totally fell in love with, it's a stranded colour-work jumper with oversized sleeves.

Spectrum Fibre does sell kits for this jumper in a lot of beautiful colour options, however as this was my first attempt at knitting a jumper I decided to start with some cheaper yarn to make it a bit less scary. For the main colour I used Rico Essentials Merino DK in the colour Patina and for the secondary colour I used The Yarn Collective Portland Lace in the colour Morning Rain. Whilst I do like both of the colours I ended up choosing, in future if I knit another Briony Pullover I definitely would like to purchase one of the Spectrum Fibre kits.

I started knitting this jumper back in July and in the beginning I was pretty slow at working on it. This was my first time knitting something with stranded colour-work, I'd obviously never used a colour-work chart before either. As I knitted the first few rows I would carefully check them over to make sure I'd followed the pattern correctly and to ensure my work matched the chart. Once I was past the first few rows I think I gained a lot of confidence and started to pick up the pace. When I was working on this project I was actually getting through it at a reasonable speed, the main reason it's taken me this long to complete the yoke is just that I've been getting sidetracked by other projects. I tend to cycle through my projects so I'll work on a single one for a while and then switch to something else and I've built up quite a number of in progress projects.

I've found the pattern very easy to follow so far, I was very nervous before I purchased it that I would end up struggling to understand it, but I've had absolutely no issues. I've actually already purchased another pattern from Born & Raised Knits (the Red Moon Cowl) because I felt confident that I would find it easy to follow after my experience with the Briony Pullover.

I think I'm going to really focus on getting this project finished so I'll be able to actually wear and enjoy it before winter is over!