Earlier this year at the Edinburgh Yarn Festival I had a stand next to Rachel (Coop Knits). She has been a huge help when I’m doing EYF and it would be far more difficult to do the show without her help. She has 2 beautiful ranges of yarn, Socks Yeah and Socks Yeah DK. Her primary focus has been on accessories and that has left Rachel short of hand knit garments, especially for shows!

So this is where I stepped in (with Margila), we both got very excited at the idea of a marled sweater that used both of her yarns held together. The idea for the sweater was to keep it simple so that it could be worn and look well on a variety of body shapes and sizes. The possibilities for combining colours was huge so picking 2 colours to make the first version from was very difficult. I think there are lots of swatching opportunities in the future combining different colours (how about some Neon Socks Yeah???). I even did a swatch today holding together Socks Yeah DK with Fyberspates Cumulus to get a feel for how a fuzzy yarn combination would work. Not half bad!

So now for a bit about the construction. It starts off with a split hem with a ribbed edge. From here the body of the sweater is worked in reverse stockinette as I really like the texture it creates with 2 yarns held together. As most knitters prefer to knit than purl the body is worked inside out when you join it in the round so you are knitting rather than purling every round.

Once the body is complete you begin working the front and back separately flat. At the shoulders short rows are worked to slope them and then a 3-needle bind-off is worked on the outside to create a decorative effect. I like the raw exposed look, especially as the fabric is reversed as well. The sleeves are picked up around the opening and worked from the top down. The have a raw curled edge and are 3/4 length and quite wide at the base. You could add a ribbed edging or extend the length if you wanted to change them a little without much difficulty.

Finally you just need to add a ribbed neck band, sew in the ends and you’re ready to go!

What colours do you think you’ll try first for your first Margila? I’m looking forward to seeing some interesting variations being knit. Use code STOLENSTITCHES18 on both Ravelry and Stolen Stitches to get 10% off the pattern until the 25th of August.