Skogafjall Sweater by Dianna Walla

Sometimes you find a twenty in your coat pocket left there from last year and other times you find an entire sweater in your 'UnFinished Objects' (UFO) bin left there from a couple years ago.  Such was the case for this Skogafjall sweater that Kimber knit when traveling out and back for the Estes Park Wool Market in 2018.  Two years later she was between projects and looking for something she could work on while watching her son's basketball game.  Without looking too hard, she grabbed the sweater thinking that a sleeve probably needed to be finished.  However, when she got to her son's game, she realized that the entire sweater was finished and all that remained to do was to weave in a few ends.  By halftime there was a new addition to the sweater pile!

Kimber says this is perhaps the best fitting sweater she's ever knitted!  It's worked top-down in worsted-weight yarn.  This shop model was knit in Heaven Worsted yarn (70% superwash merino wool/20% cashmere/10%silk) in the colors Ivy League for the main body with Marina and Au Naturale for the contrasting colors in the yoke.  Most of the fair isle work in the yoke is straightforward but there are a few rows that require 3 colors to be carried rather than the conventional two colors.

Because this sweater is knit from the top down, you can try it on as you go to make sure you get the fit that's perfect for you.  This is a huge advantage with top down sweater designs!  Picking up and knitting the sleeves while they are attached to the sweater body can be more than a little tedious in top-down sweaters, earning this process the term 'Sleeve Island'.  However, knowing that you are going to end up with a beautiful garment that fits is more than worth the trade-off.