Waning Crescent Sweater

waning crescent pattern

We’ve been busy here at Stolen Stitches with a new pattern (knit by the wonderful Joy!), Waning Crescent. I love combining different colours in my yarn and using different ways of blending them together. This sweater is worked from the top down and uses colourwork with textured stitches to break up the change in colour. This is similar to the technique that I used in the Bohus sweater for Laine but as you can see this looks really different in this pattern!

waning crescent swatch

Here’s a look at the first swatch I did for this sweater, the stitch pattern has been tweaked a little since then and I changed the top colour from Kitten Fluff to Unexpected Macaw but it will give you an idea of how the purl stitches blend those colours together. This technique allows you to take even wild varieties of colours and using a ‘moon’ colour at each colour change that works with all of them you can allow them to blend well together.

I’ve put some kits together with different colour options but if you’ve got ideas on colours you’d like to try then play around with Nua shades yourself!

This sweater uses one of my favourite construction techniques, top down saddle shoulder with set-in sleeves. It’s very easy with this construction to make small changes for your body size. It begins at the shoulder with the saddles on both sides, from here stitches are picked up on both the front and back of the saddle and the upper body is worked down to the underarm. After that the body is joined in the round and you alternate colourwork with different colours. As there is a good bit going on I opted to omit shaping on the body, this also means that it’s a very relaxed fit that you can wear with just 1-2″ / 2.5-5 cm of positive ease. If the saddles are the right width for your shoulders this sweater is going to fit you very nicely. Once the body is finished the sleeves are worked, using short rows to shape the sleeve caps and then working in the round from the top down.

waning crescent pattern by carol feller using nua yarn

 

So what colour choices do you think you might try out for your Waning Crescent?

If you’re planning on going to Edinburgh Yarn Festival I’ll have the sample with me with yarn kits ready to go!

5 thoughts on “Waning Crescent Sweater

  1. Carol this is a beautiful sweater. But if I wanted to knit size 35” bust and adjust the pattern so that the sleeves are the same colour as the body (figment versus macaw) how would I also adjust the number of skeins for each colour?

  2. Hi Mary,

    There are the yardage amounts for each colour: Approximate Yardage: C1: 580 (613, 650, 693, 730, 760, 808, 848) yds / 530 (561, 596, 634, 668, 696, 738, 776) m; C2: 137 (145, 154, 164, 173, 180, 191, 201) yds / 126 (133, 141, 150, 158, 165, 175, 184) m; C3: 401 (424, 450, 480, 505, 527, 559, 587) yds / 367 (388, 412, 439, 462, 482, 512, 538) m; C4: 58 (61, 65, 69, 72, 75, 80, 84) yds / 53 (56, 59, 63, 66, 69, 73, 77) m

    I don’t have a breakdown of body colour v’s sleeve but your size uses 401 yards of Figment. I’d suggest that you get 2 skeins extra of the Macaw and 2 less of Figment. You could also adjust where you do the colourwork as well so that you use more of one colour than another, moving the dividing lines up and down.

  3. Hi Carol,
    This is a beautiful sweater and I might have to ‘own’ it. I have a question re Mosquito: is the green more on the blue-green side or yellow-green? How about Frog? If I wanted to substitute the Mosquito, what color would you suggest? It’s difficult to determine the true colors via the website. Thank you!

    Warm regards,
    Melvia

  4. This is so much fun. The construction is a lot like Viminal, which I love. This is perfect project to use some yarn I just bought last weekend from a local dyer that I will combine with some from stash. This is such fun sweater and the saddle shoulders fit really well.
    Jane

  5. Mosquito Coast is what I think of as an army green, so a dark camouflage green. Frog on the wall on the other hand is a very yellow green, I’ve sometimes heard it described as Grello!

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