Topographie Yoke: the beginning

A while back you may have seen some yarn I dyed with Kool-Aid for a sweater project. I began the knitting last week, after I finished my socks, and have been making slow but steady progress on the sleeves.

I like knitting two sleeves at a time, using the Magic Loop method, since I will otherwise somehow manage to make them different from one another (usually by forgetting what I did on the first one.) Well, I say I "like" it, but really I find it kind of tedious -- it's still better than having two different sleeves.
As I mentioned before, I'm using the stitch pattern from the Topographie pattern in Knitty's Winter '08 edition. Basically you just take a variegated yarn and knit stockingette, but when the next stitch on the left needle is in the contrasting colour, purl it instead of knitting. It gives some really interesting texture, as you can see in the photo. I think after I block it, the ruffly nature of the knit fabric will be tamed into something smoother, but the reddish purls will still stand out.

You can see that because each skein I dyed is different, the stitch pattern will be different as well. One sleeve started out a lot more full of purls than the other, for example, but evened out as I went on. Now that I've gotten past the increases and into the upper arm, you can see that the pattern gets more regular and is making a spiral of sorts. I wasn't thrilled with it, initially, since I preferred the randomness, but it's growing on me. If I really wanted it to stay random, I could have begun to alternate skeins for each row -- that way, the repeat would have been broken up. I opted for letting the skeins speak, rather than trying to control it. After all, I dyed them myself, so I am speaking through them.

A few more inches and I will be done the arms to the armpit, and then I can cast on the bottom hem and start the body. I have to do some thinking about how fitted and/or loose and casual I want it to be...