The Bouquet Sweater
I first came across Junko Okamoto’s designs, as one does, on Instagram. A wonderful Japanese designer that has quickly crowded my to-knit-list with beauties like the Twigs, Yuri and Astrid. But first up, unable to resist a cheeky cast-on, is the Bouquet Sweater. An all over colourwork design with an unusual construction and detail. And in a worsted weight stitch gauge of 20 st x 10 cm it was too good to wait.
Pattern: Bouquet sweater
Designer: Junko Okamoto
Yarn: Du Store Alpakka Sterk
Colourway: Gråsvart Mouline & 859 Sennep
Cast on in early March it had been on my mind since it was first published in January 2019. First I did try my best pairing the pattern with yarn from my stash, but I could not find what I was looking for. So I decided I would try out a local commercial yarn I hadn’t used before. Du Store Alpakka’s Sterk is a 40/40/20 Alpaca/Merino/Nylon blend and I was pleasently surprised by it. I had grown a bit weary of alpaca these past years as it tends to be very hairy, have too much drape for garments and be overly warm for me to stand useing indoors. But with a dash of nylon for strength and merino for hold and stitch definition it worked up quite nicely. The pattern calls for a worsted weight yarn, but I found it works just as well with the DK yarn, creating a thinner fabric which again works well for me and the alpaca blend.
Understanding the pattern
It is exiting in itself to try out patterns from around the world. Even though you can get many now in English it doesn't always follow that you get the logic of it at the first go. The sweater is worked from the top down starting with a tubular cast on which i fiddled with for quite a while. I really wanted to get it right as the neckline is going to be pretty visible.
What surprised me the most about the pattern was the lack of sizes. It reminded me in that sense of old knitting patterns from 50’s magazines - they give you the one size and you have to just figure it out for yourself if you want to size up or down from the given measurements. I would suggest the best way is to play around with the gauge of the fabric, because of the construction you would be hard pressed to fit another pattern repeat on the yoke (only 3 repeats around) and on the body the front and back patterns does not repeat at all. One suggestion there could be to add some extra plain stockinette on the sides below the arms to give a little extra width. Length is simply added by extending the bottom ribbing that follows directly after the colourwork chart is completed.
Catch your floats
For this pattern I would wholly recommend to use your preferred method for catching the inside floats. They can get pretty long and then it really becomes a practical issue for wearing the thing. I think I wrapped the float for each 4/5th stitch, but I was not very consistent on this one and would not like to show off the inside of this colourwork! The floats on the front making up the horisontal stripes is such a simple and elegant way to create the pattern. Which apart from the yoke (x3) does not repeat itself, making it near impossible to memorise the chart. I could not knit this while watching TV or similar, so it has been a commute knit until the end. Thank goodness for train-rides.
Things learned
Me and alpaca can indeed be friends. It just needs to be the right pattern and yarn combo. Du Store Alpakka Sterk worked out nicely for this knit, giving the sweater a slight drape to fabric after blocking and plenty of warmth along with a bit of fuzz.
I should learn how to do a proper stretchy bind-off. My cuffs needs redoing as they are too narrow and not stretchy at all. Pattern is not at fault here, it did state to do a tubular bind off, but that was too much of a hassle for me at the time so I just did a standard knit-slip-one-over kind of deal. Cuffs are OK, but I can’t really push the sleeves up past my elbow which I am wont to do.
