Turtle Dove Sweater

Turtle Dove is designed by Melissa Clulow for Espace Tricot in Montreal, Quebec. It is a modern sweater style with a long raglan yoke shaping and 3/4 length sleeves which I changed to full-length sleeves in my version.

I used Life Chunky by Stylecraft in Shade 2322 Denim to knit Turtle Dove. It is a machine washable chunky weight yarn 75% premium acrylic and 25% wool in a fabulous shade of blue.

If I was knitting Turtle Dove again, there are a few things I would change. Firstly, I wouldn’t use a twisted rib as I find it causes the neck to be a little too tight-fitting for comfort and that the split hem pulls in a bit too much around the hips. On me, I think it would be more flattering if the body of the sweater was a little more sleek and straight.

Although the sweater is comfortable, it isn’t one that I’ve worn much. I don’t find it flattering on me. And, I don’t really wear chunky weight sweaters normally. I prefer lighter weight sweaters of 4ply or DK weight at the heaviest.

Actually, I think I would have worn the sweater more if it had been longer so I could wear it comfortably with leggings. But when I reach up for something like fiddling with my hat, the whole sweater pulls up, and I’m not at an age when I want my midriff shown to the world!

In Belfast, it doesn’t really get very cold, and when we do get cooler weather, the central heating gets turned on for a couple of hours. What we do get is a lot of rain, there is a reason why Northern Ireland is green! This means that going out without a coat, doesn’t really work for me. So having a sweater with a very long raglan yoke is problematic as I can’t wear a coat over it comfortably.

It was very quick to knit the sweater using chunky yarn and it is nice to be able to knit a sweater very quickly now and again. In comparison 4 ply sweaters take rather a long time to knit.

I added decreases to the sleeves in the pattern as I didn’t want the sleeves to be too bulky.

• Rounds 1-5: knit
• Round 6: k1, k2tog, k to the last 3 sts, ssk, k1
• Repeat Eound 1-6 five times.

Then continued knitting to the desired length before knitting the cuff.

This is a nice sweater to wear on a cold dry day walking on the beach. It is lovely walking with Bene and enjoying listening to the sound of the waves lapping against the rocks.