I finished this in August but only now got around to taking pictures.
It is knitted using a pattern generated by the pattern calculator at
http://www.knittingfool.com/ which is a brilliant site and full of other useful information. For the pattern calculator, you put in your chest measurement, needle size and tension and it calculates the stitches and rows you need to make the sweater. I used the raglan top-down pattern but there are others.
I got the yarn from Orion Wool and Crafts in Cape Town. It is 100% bamboo yarn, Serina by Vinnis Colours, hand dyed and balled by women from an economically depressed rural area of South Africa.
It is beautifully soft and has a lovely satin sheen which I think you can see in the picture. Also the shades are very slightly variegated because of being hand dyed. The garment is quite heavy because of the stitch I used which carries some threads across the back to give a thicker fabric. As a result it is also quite warm.
The stitch used was one I devised because I wanted to use all the colours but didn't want plain stripes and also I cannot get the tension right for proper Fair Isle. The colours alternate in two rows each but I slipped stitches to make it look like blocks of colour instead of stripes.
The solid colour squares represent stitches that have been knitted. The
n squares are stitches that have been slipped. The vertical arrows show the direction of knitting. Each row on the chart is one row of knitting. I was knitting in the round so they are all plain rows, otherwise they would alternate plain and purl.
The pattern changes direction on the blue rows. (Indicated by the horizontal arrows.) Either the blue knits up two stitches (x x) first and then a slipped stitch (n)or else it knits up a slipped stitch (n) followed by two knit stitches (x x).
Between ** and ** represents one complete pattern change.
Changing direction makes it more complicated and there is much more room for error. I had to keep close track of my pattern changes. You could just knit it without changing direction and it would look something like this.
Instead of this.
This picture also shows how the colour varies slightly within each shade.
Knitted on 4 mm and 3.5 mm circular needles.
