The Feminist Holiday Sweater is a vintage inspired short sleeve fitted sweater with color work. The sweater is knit bottom up, then separated for the front and back color work, which is knit using stranded color work, although the pattern does accommodate for the use of duplicate stitch if this technique is preferred. The front color work is three layers of symbols; hearts, the woman sign and trees. On the back is the feminist holiday themed pun “Sleigh the Patriarchy”. After the neckline shaping is complete the front and back are seamed together and the sleeves are picked up and knitted directly from the body.

Fit
Since the pattern is made to measure it fits any size and any gender. Made to measure basically means that the knitter will make a swatch and then based on their personal gauge and measurements, they will calculate their cast on and other elements of the pattern. This process and the calculations are all described in detail with examples in the pattern, and the math is all super simple and can be done quickly.

The pattern also includes instructions for a fit with shaping and without, depending on the knitters preference!

Yarn
In terms of yarn, the pattern recommends a light fingering merino yarn, like the Filcolana Arwetta Classic 80% supermerino and 20% nylon, 50g, 210 m, light fingering) which was used for the original pattern. It is important that you use a light fingering weight yarn, especially if you will be knitting a smaller size, since the colorwork design on the back might become too big to fit if using a thicker yarn, and the calculations are also based on a light fingering yarn so they may not give a correct estimate for a different yarn weight.

Here are the calculations needed to determine how many skeins of yarn your pattern will use up, it includes a yarn conversion in case you are not planning on using the Filcolana yarn:

To get an estimate of how much yarn to buy for this project, please follow the steps below:

1. Make one measurement around the point on your torso with the greatest circumference. Make sure you use centimeters and wear whatever you might wear under this top once it is finished to ensure an accurate fit.

2. Divide this number by 16. 
 For example, 90 cm / 16 = 5.6                            

3. If you get a decimal equal or greater to .5, like in the example, you will need to round the number up

For example, 90/16 = 5.6 = 6

If you have a longer torso, or you usually find you need extra yarn for a project, add 1. I recommend adding one extra skein if your measurement exceeds 96 cm. This number is the number of skeins you will need to complete the project.

For example, since the calculation above equaled 6, and assuming they did not have a longer torso, etc. a person with a measurement of 90 cm would need a total of 6 skeins of yarn in total.

In order to determine how much of this yarn will be of the main and the accent color, please follow the instructions below.

The main color is 85% percent of the sweater, while the accent color is 15% percent.

So, multiply your total number of skeins by 0.85, round to the nearest whole number, and subtract this number from your total number of skeins to get the second color:

6 x 0.85 = 5.1

5 (main color skeins)
6-5 = 1 (accent color skeins)

This means that the example with 90 cm would be buying 6 skeins total: 5 main color and 1 accent color.

Conversion to other yarn types (not relevant if using Filcolana Arwetta Classic)
Each Arwetta skein is approximately 210 m in length. Multiply 210 by your number of skeins, once for your main color skeins, and once for your secondary color skeins, and you will get the total number of meters you need in yarn for each.

210 x 5 = 1050 m

210 x 1 = 210 m

Divide each of these numbers by the length (in meters) of one skein of the yarn you plan to use, and you should get the number of skeins you will need for the project. If you get any decimal, round up, even below 0.5.

1050/170 = 6.2 = 7 main color skeins

210/170 = 1.2 = 2 accent color skeins

I hope that you enjoy the pattern, and if you do end up knitting it and posting about it, please tag me @Knitting_Glitter and use the hashtag #feministholidaysweater, I would love to see your version!