Knitting a Halloween sweater from my Pinterest board🎃 Nocturnal Jumper Project Vlog.

Hello my friends! I am so excited for today's video because we're going to be tackling the nocturnal jumper together and I have been dying to tackle this spooky sweater and can't wait to bring you guys along with me on the journey. I kid you not, this sweater has been on my Pinterest board since well before I knew how to knit and it was my main motivator for learning how to do color work. If you're new here by the way, hi my name is Erica. I love any and everything yarn related and I also love Halloween and spooky season so this video is just a combination of of all my favorite things. If you're not new here, then welcome back. I am so excited to do a spooky vlog with you guys. Hopefully you're enjoying the new studio space. I know that I am. This is my first time recording a full video in it. Not sure it'll be the first one that goes up, but it is the first time recording, and I must say I am loving the cozy vibes so much. Just for your insight, today is September 23rd, which gives us a little bit over a month and a week to complete this sweater if we were to get it done right before Halloween. And of course, I would love to have it done a couple of weeks before. for Halloween, although that is very ambitious. I did have every intention of starting this sweater much sooner. I bought the yarn in early August. I thought I was so prepared, and then life just got hectic, and I was not able to get to it, unfortunately. That being said, I have started on the collar. Collar. I had to redo it three times but we'll talk about that in just a moment. I also worked up my gauge swatches and got all of my yarn into cakes so at least we've done some of the setup and now you and I can just get into the knitting but let me talk to you guys about the yarn that I'm using first in case you haven't seen any of my previous videos where I've already talked about it. I'm using Cascade 220. I am following very similar colors as what the designer has in In the sample photo, we have. River Rock, this is Ginger, and then we've got Black. And I, you know what? I could have been a little more creative with the colors I used, but like I said, I just want it to look exactly like the picture that I've had on Pinterest. I just love this sweater and I don't want to change a thing about it. I just want it on my body like now. So why did I have to redo my collar three times? Well, that's a really good question and one that I'm kind of still asking myself. I actually don't really know 100% what happened. I... I think maybe the way that the pattern is written is different from what the sample photo looks like. I don't know if I'm going crazy. I redid it two times, like I said, and I've also read through it like five times. And that is the conclusion that I came to. The way that the pattern is written, I think that these two are flipped. So you would see the purl bumps being of a purl row being in this taupe color and then the knit rose being in the ginger. I really wanted it to look like the Ginger was the pearl bumps making it look more like that was the base and then the accent was in the taupey color because I feel like that's going to feed into the sweater a lot more nicely. So why did I do it twice in the beginning? Because I think I thought maybe I was holding my yarns in the wrong way so it was a color dominance issue. Come to find out after zooming into the picture. I think I just needed to Flip which color were my purl rows and which color were or my pearl stitches and which color were my knit stitches. So I am happy with the way that this is finally looking and I'm also going to work a collar a bit shorter than what is written out in the pattern. I don't really like my collars to come up super duper high, so I'll probably work it to about two thirds of the way and then call it from there. But that's where we're at right now. I think we have a lot of work to do. Better get to knitting and not chatting too much for now, but I'm hoping you guys can hold me accountable to get this done, hopefully with a little bit of time before Halloween so we can at least enjoy the sweater. So with all the talking out of the way for the intro, let me go ahead and get back to knitting and I'm hoping that when I see you guys next, I'll be well into the color chart. Oh, one more thing I did want to say that I don't think I said yet. I'm definitely still a beginner when it comes to color work. So this is going to be a challenge for sure. I've only ever done one color work project with the sunflower power beanie. And I feel like that was a great taste of doing color work. This one will be three stranded color work. So it's going to have that added. Dimension of difficulty and there's gonna just be a lot more to manage with my floats So I'm a little bit nervous about it, but I think we can do it I've got a good feeling about it. And yeah, I'm just cannot wait to have this sweater Like I said, so now with all of that out of the way we can actually go ahead and get to knitting So here's where I'm tapping out for the night. I gotta go take a shower and get ready for bed. It is a work night. But I did decide to stop on the collar early, like I said. I did around two and a half inches. And then for the increases, I did get a little tripped up. I had to do a bit of research. I found a very helpful Reddit post. I've never seen it in a pattern before where it just says M1, so it's just make one usually. I have found it said make one left or make one right in my experience, so I didn't really know what to do. With the make one and I looked it up and people had found out from the designer that it was recommended to alternate M1L and M1R so that's what I've done so far. I'm all done with my setup rounds now after this we're going to start working on the color work chart which I am so nervous about so I'll see you guys next time when I'm working on that. So friends, I am back in the same position where I left you all yesterday. So sorry if the background's a little boring. I'm not changing things up. It's not super aesthetic, but I'm just basking in the glory of this new crafting space. I love it so much. And also I've got my ergonomic chair in here, which you really just can't beat. It's so much nicer to be. sitting upright and positioned well rather than crunched over though I did do a little bit of that yesterday while I sat on the couch I knitted while my husband and I finished a movie together and I wanted to talk to you guys about it real quick because it is a horror movie and this is a little bit of our spooky Halloween project vlog so no worries if you're not into scary movies feel free to skip forward a little bit but for those of you who are my fellow horror buffs I'm dying to know if you all have seen the movie Hocus I feel like Hocus was like the perfect Halloween horror movie. For those of you who have not really heard of it, it's basically, without spoiling anything, about a writer who goes, I think, to Ireland. It's considered a folk horror movie, and he stays at this hotel, and it's kind of set in this somewhat creepy, haunted-looking hotel, and there's just some mysterious characters and some things that are going on. There's a witch, there's also, like, a masked... Monster of some sort. I don't want to give too much of the plot away, but The main actor from Severance, I'm horrible with actors' names, so sorry, I don't know his name, but he is the main character in the movie and he does a great job of playing kind of, not kind of, a major jerk, but it's such a fun movie to watch. It's really, truly one of those slow burns. It got like 90% on Rotten Tomatoes, so clearly a lot of people really enjoyed it. I myself did too. I have to say, the ending I was a little bit confused about. My husband really seemed to understand the deeper message, I kind of ended the movie scratching my head a little bit, although I am one of those people that likes endings that are like wrapped up neatly with a bow. I was gripped the whole movie and then I got to like the end and I was just hoping for a little bit more information on the monsters and I just didn't really feel like I got that. Like I said, my husband really enjoyed the ending and I was like, it was so deep, this meant this, this meant that, and I was like, how did you derive that from that? But either way, it's a really good movie and I do recommend it. I feel like 2026 has been an amazing year for horror buffs. If you are into horror movies, have not seen the movie, do recommend it. It's not terribly gory. It's like honestly the perfect Halloween spooky movie. There's also like a Halloween party scene and they got some jack-o'-lanterns, just haunted hotel vibes. Like what more can you ask for in a scary movie? So anyway, that's my little tangent, but I thought that would be kind of fun to give you guys my mini movie review since Since we are knitting up a Halloween sweater. So speak. Speaking of Halloween sweater, let's talk about the progress that I have made now. I've been working on the color work and I mean, this might not look like much, but I feel like it's coming along really nicely. I am. Kind of speeding through this thing I feel like anyways. I am really glad that I tackled that sunflower power beanie first though because it did give me the confidence to take this on and I think I would feel a bit more overwhelmed had I not done that first. Oops, I just clanked my mug, which we're very much in the Halloween spirit over here as you can see. I did mention yesterday that I was going to do the alternating make one left and make one right and I did end up doing that, but then I also did a little bit more research on Reddit And found someone who did. the pattern test had some recommendations for how they did their increases and they actually used a lifted left leaning increase um as well as like a make one right I'll just put their reddit comment in right here just in case you all get stuck on that part as well and you want to refer to that but I looked at the pictures of their finished item and thought that looks beautiful that's going to work out just fine for me because it did for them so that's kind of the Pattern that I'm going to be following as far as increases goes, but yeah, this is where we're at and I think I'm just going to continue to knit up on this. I think I'm going to check in with you all when I'm working on the cat motifs. I want to try out the ladder back jacquard method. I was looking up how I'm going to manage these really long floats with the cat motifs because there's like a lot of space between when I need the orange to when I need it again on the other side of the black. So I'm thinking that's what I'm going to try out. I saw a lot of people online recommending that. So that's going to definitely be a new skill for us that we'll hopefully learn together. But I think I can We can fly through this color work section within the next. Couple of days and then we can get to tackling the kitty cat motifs, which I'm so excited about. I know that it's going to take me longer and longer as this thing gets wider and wider. So I'm just kind of enjoying how quickly it's going right now before it's going to take a bit longer for me to do. So, yeah, I think that's everything I wanted to say for this particular check in. I'll see you all when we get to the kitty cat motifs or start to tackle those. Oh, I remember one more thing I did want to say. I also was seeing people online saying to ask German short rows and I have no idea what that means I'm just gonna be honest so this is my PSA or my call to anybody who is a far more expert knitter than I am where would I add the German short rows I was starting to do some research on it and I saw people said you would just add it to the neckline after you finish the collar But then I also saw that they said if you don't want it to change up your color work chart and where it sits on the body, it's best not to do that. So I'm not super confident in my abilities yet to be hacking a pattern like that other than like very minor tweaks. So I decided not to add the short rows and I think it'll still fit great. I think this is my first circular yoke sweater ever actually being worked up. So I don't know what it's going to fit like, but I did decide to knit a size four, which should give me some additional positive ease. So I saw online that it also said if it's an oversized sweater, then it's okay. I don't know. I'm just learning here. Okay, guys, that's all I had to say. So next time I see you guys, I think I'll be working on the cat motifs and we'll learn that new skill together. I am back and I have a update for you all. It's not the update that I said I would have, but I did end up... Frogging back my color work that I have completed thus far. I think I got to about halfway through and then had the thought that I should probably block it just to see if my gauge was correct. Now I'm going to tell you guys I did do something kind of stupid. I did work the color work gauge swatch. But then I made the assumption that I could just go up a half needle size or a full size, so half a millimeter, and it would work out. And it did not work out. I should have just made the second swatch because I needed to go up two needle sizes, I think. So I ended up frogging it back. And yes, I know that I completely assumed the risk of doing that. But you know what? I did end up blocking it and figuring it out before we got too far down and I just hate working color work swatches in the round. I find them to be so finicky and frustrating and they just waste a lot of yarn, but. I didn't end up going back and doing it, so I should have just done it in the first place. When will I learn you cannot cut corners? But you know what? I am proud of myself for stopping where I was and blocking it just to make sure things were going as planned. I didn't really get too far, so I'm not too stressed out about it. But here is my half a gauge swatch. Yes, I know it is not four by four. I am not going to do a four by four. I think this is going to be just fine. I just did one of the color work motifs, and I feel okay about it. So assuming Assuming the risk here, if it doesn't work out, it's on me. It's all good. I did also decide to try out the ladder back jacquard while I was at it and oh my gosh you guys it is so hard. I so casually mentioned it to you all that I was going to give it a shot and I'm not kidding you when I say that I sat there for probably I want to say three hours yesterday trying to understand how I'm going to make this happen with three colors. There's so many great tutorials about how to do ladder back jacquard but they're all with two colors and for And for someone who has never done it before. and I'm trying to balance three colors. It seems very challenging. So I think I figured it out. I hope I marked up my chart, but this is another thing where I was trying to work it up in the form of a gauge swatch and I was just getting so over it. And if I just, I know myself, if I don't just go for it and figure it out on the fly, I'm not going to tackle this sweater and it's just going It's going to not get done by the time that I want it to get done. So I... I'm just going to learn as I go, just like I did with the Sunflower Power Beanie. I did learn how to do it as I went along, and now I know how to do a color work gauge swatch. I'm sure things will get easier in the future, but for now, I just can't be bothered with it. So I did work up this one, and yes, I do know that it is small, but this is what we're going to do. And I'm going to go ahead and blow dry this because I don't have the patience to wait for it. And then we're going to get back to working on the color work portion of the sweater. And then we're going to just tackle ladder back jacquard on the fly. Or alternatively, just go back to catching floats and dealing with maybe some of the colors showing through if it does at all. So let's go ahead and get to blocking this mini swatch together. Making some very good progress on the sweater as you can see. I have made quite a few mistakes and had to like go back and fix them but that's okay that's the best way to learn. We just have one more little color block to finish and then we're to the cat motifs which I am very nervous about. I'll do my best to talk you guys through what I'm going to try to do for the Ladderback Jacquard when we get to that point just in case you're somebody who is Trying ladder back jacquard for the first time on the nocturnal jumper like I am and again insurance I'm, just saying it may not work out at all and we may just catch long floats or catch floats and deal with it that way but I did want to just take a really quick detour for those of you guys who have been hanging out with me as I've been getting my craft room set up or at least did in the last video. I went recently to a illustrator fair that was in my area and I found some adorable wall prints to go up on the wall so no they're not spooky no this has nothing to do with the nocturnal jumper but I just couldn't wait to show you guys these because they are so cute and I cannot wait Can't wait to see them up on the wall. So the first one that I got is this precious little print of all of these Asian snacks and they've got like Hi-Chew. Donut Pocky, like these little strawberry chocolates that I used to eat as a kid and they are just cubes on this adorable pink background and I thought that this one was too good. I will try to see if I can find the artist's names if they're on here at all and I will link them in the description box in case you guys see anything that you really like. I also got this one that is Avatar the Last Airbender and we've just got all the gang riding on Appa but it's in these adorable little pastel-y colors. Really tried to go for like a general vibe to match my purple bookcase in case you guys have seen that. And then this really cute one of all of these cats just Causing some ruckus in a bathroom with like this beautiful cosmic space scene happening outside and I didn't even notice this cat is looking at itself in the mirror and it has heart eyes. At the end of the like fair when we were going to leave, I was on a quest to find at least one print that had cats on it and I was going to give up and I was actually looking for a different booth that had a munchie drawing that I really liked. And then I stumbled upon this one and I was so happy that I just kind of found it at the last minute. Now we've got one more that I actually got to get out of this roll to show you guys. And then of course since it's a gaming room I got this little Game Boy Advance. I think that's what this one was right? Yeah this is the Game Boy Advance but it's got this gorgeous like whimsical background with the moon in the back and then it looks like it's grown for some reason. Some foliage on it. I don't know it just really stood out to me and I thought it worked really nicely with all of the rest of our colors. Then I have to show you Devin's one piece that he got because of course he needs something for his side of the room and this is Ghost from Call of Duty. So as you can see we're curating very different vibes over here but that was just a fun little detour that I did want to take you with you all because I did create that video where we were setting up my studio and or my shared studio obviously and the wallpaper didn't work out sadly and I was a little bit bummed that we weren't going to have some fun walls but it's okay because rest assured we did find some artwork that I think is going to spruce up the white walls perfectly. So anyway that's the detour I wanted to take with you guys. I am going to continue to work on this and then I'll be back when we actually finally get to the cat motifs and I'll talk you guys through my hopeful plan. hi friends so it's now been quite a while since the last time i checked in with you all between not being able to pick up the camera for a couple of weeks and then also accidentally deleting some footage there's a pretty big gap between where you guys last saw the sweater and where it's at now so please forgive me for that it was a bit of a mistake on my end but also life has just been so busy i just went to a Lamb Town which is my first ever fiber arts festival and i did vlog the whole thing and then my husband and i just got back from disney and universal today actually, and it's already October 12th. So I couldn't stop and wait to record. I had to keep going if I want to get this sweater done before Halloween, which I really do. So I have a lot to catch you guys up on. I think last I talked to you all I said I would check in when we got to the cat motifs and starting on them. I've actually completely finished the cat motifs and I have now split for the sleeves and I just want to take a pause, take a moment to tell you all that I am in love with the way that this is looking. It seriously looks so unreal on the viewfinder. It's kind of crazy to see something that has been on my Pinterest board come to life in my hands. This is by far the most project that I have ever made to date. Those are my floats. It just is kind of insane but has been a lot of fun and such a relief that now I am going to get to just work in stockinette until we get down to the ribbing at the bottom. This is my first time ever doing a circular yoke sweater, and I cannot wait to see what it looks like with these patterns going down on the sleeves. I think that that is just going to look so cool. Now, where have things kind of changed since I talked to you all last? I was feeling not confident, but excited to try out this ladderback jacquard technique. I did do quite a bit of research on how I could make that happen with three-stranded colorwork, and I must say, I could not find any tutorials for for how to do it with three strands of yarn versus just two and maybe if you're somebody who has done it before it's like clicks and it's more self-explanatory but for me having never done it in the past it just was not making sense. I need something to look at that is like exactly what I'm going to be doing or at least have the technique under my belt a little bit so I can understand. The way it works. So all that to say, I ended up scrapping that idea. I just caught my floats in the regular way. And honestly, I still think that it looks great. I wasn't really too worried about it. Or I made that game time decision, I guess because you don't really see any of the colors peeking through in the earlier color work where i was just catching floats normally so i figured it was going to be just fine for the rest of it and honestly if i waited until i figured that out this sweater wouldn't be done until maybe next halloween Scrapped that idea, went with the regular way of catching floats by twisting and I'm really glad with how it turned out. Now all I gotta do is just work and stockinette down to the bottom and oh my gosh when I got to the part where it became just two stranded color work I was telling my husband for those of you who played sports let me know if this analogy makes sense. If you ever did like resistance training with the bands where someone would hold you back and you're like sprinting It very much felt like going from three-stranded to two-stranded was going from having that resistance around your waist to having no resistance. You can just like sprint. That's exactly how I felt, especially when I got down to the single-stranded area and where I'm at now just working stockinettes. amazing and i really like projects like this where you're breaking up challenging parts of the project with like the relaxing straight stockinette um it kind of makes it fun and breaks things up quite a bit but that's kind of where we are at at this point um like i said apologies that we did so much since i saw you all last i think maybe we were down to here oh i remembered something i did want to talk to you all about so i did have a little bit of a a mistake that I learned a really cool trick on how to fix. So I wanted to share it with you guys in case you ever run into this in the future yourselves, but I did already make a quick reel about it. So instead of re-explaining everything, I think I'm just going to pop that in here. I was very happily working away on this colorwork sweater when I looked back a few rows and noticed something distressing, disturbing, upsetting, all the words. This row is so much looser than the rest of my stitches and maybe it's only something I would notice but it was going to bother me and I knew that. So I took to YouTube, found a tutorial that looks to be a lifesaver where I don't have to frog back my work to fix the mistake and I thought I would bring you guys along with me as we try out this trick because it's a good one. First I wanted to show you an up close of how loose my stitches are. You can see it's very different from previous Typically, you would start this at the middle of your work where it's It's your first stitch, but I kind of already tried it out just to make sure it was going to work before I recorded this. As you probably already know, every stitch has a right and a left leg. You're just going to take the right leg of the first stitch and pull on it. Now don't pull too tight. You want it to kind of mimic what your stitches looked like in previous rows. Then you're going to do the left one. Again, not pulling too tight. This is kind of all there is to it. You'll see how much additional slack I had here. I really should have sized down in my needles, but you're just going to repeat this All the way around until you get back to your first stitch where you did this. Thought I would stop it here and show you guys the halfway point because I feel like it's really obvious there. This is the looser side and then these are all of the stitches that I've already taken care of. Once you get back to the beginning, this is an important step. You're going to want to cross your two ends over each other and make sure that you weave in the direction that you crossed so that way you don't have a hole after the fact. All done with finishing up that little trick and I think it looks so much better. Hopefully you all can see it on camera. Now it's definitely not perfect because you're not Knitting around the same size needle as you were previously, you're just pulling on the yarn to try to make it look as similar as possible, but I could definitely go back through with a fine-tooth comb and kind of disperse the slack amongst the stitches in the row with any that are still too loose. I also think that when I block it, it's going to look just fine, and I'm really happy with this trick. It is a little tedious going all the way around and pulling on each one, but not any more tedious than having to redo the color work section. that would have made me cry probably. So all that to say 10 out of 10 for this trick. I will link the full length YouTube tutorial in the description in case any of you guys want to give this a shot but I am definitely going to be using this should I run into this challenge again at any point in the future. How cool was that little trick? I'm definitely going to be using that in my arsenal for years and years to come but at this point I think maybe let's do a little try on before I get back to working it up in stockinette and then I'm gonna do the corrugated rib down at the bottom One last check in with you all on where are we at in relation to Halloween which is almost here and how am I feeling also. So let me go and do a try on with you guys real quick. Okay. Well it's not going to look like this. This is tied pretty tightly but this is just showing me how much knitting I actually have left to do. I think I thought I was closer to the end and thought this would sit a little bit lower but oh my gosh now I'm a little bit nervous. We got a lot of knitting to do before Halloween. Okay let's get going. Please excuse the awkward camera angle and the fact that this is not my usual background and it's probably horrible camera quality. I'm in San Diego visiting my mom. We're going to a wedding this weekend and so I'm just recording this little bit on my phone on the front facing camera because that's easiest. But anyways, I did have a quick little update for you all on my nocturnal jumper. I don't know if we discussed this previously. This sweater comes in a full length version and then a cropped version. Initially, I was going to make the full length version. That's what I bought the amount of yarn for because I usually like my sweaters to be oversized and full length. However, after trying this on, I think I'm going to stop at, I think this was 20 centimeters down from the armpit because I think it's just looking a little bit better that way. I personally think it looks like it's going to have too much negative space with the color work being up here if I go all the way down to the full length. I hope that makes sense. It's mostly just a personal preference, but I'm super excited because that means we're finally done with this portion of it and we can get to the corrugated rib down at the bottom and then finish up on the sleeves. Today is I think October 16th, so we're making really good time. I was on a flight that Well, it took me six hours to get to San Diego when it should have taken me two, usually. And so I did have a lot of time to fortunately work on this sweater and I got all of the body done down here at the bottom. All good things. Gonna go ahead and continue working on this and I'll show you guys when I am done with the ribbing and probably have done quite a bit of the sleeves as well. Maybe even when the sweater's completely done. At this point, it's all kind of looking the same and I really just need to get down to finishing up the sleeves. So I think by the time I see you guys next time, actually on second thought, it will be a grand reveal of this completely done and I will also catch you up on some of my finishing thoughts and all that good stuff. So, okay, see you guys soon. She is completely finished. Oh my gosh. First of all, just a moment for it. This is blocked and everything. I am so, so, so in love. That is seriously an understatement. I don't think I could be happier with the way that this turned out. I ended up blocking it yesterday, and then I wanted to go get some photos today. It is Sunday, October 25th, by the way, so that is our final day that we are clocking in that we finished this sweater. I have one week before Halloween-ish to wear this and enjoy it, which is perfect, but I But I did end up blocking this yesterday. And I wanted to get photos today. It was still wet. So I ended up wearing it while it was just slightly damp, but it's really warm out where I live. So it just dried up by the time we got home, which is great. But yeah, I am going to pop in a little clip of what it looked like pre-blocked here as well, because I think you can really tell the difference. The color work, especially really like loosened up and it doesn't have those weird wrinkles anymore. So here is a closeup of what the color work looks like. Oh my gosh. I really don't even think you can. You can tell that there's a little bit of the color peeking through from carrying my floats the twisty way rather than doing ladder back, but it doesn't bother me at all. So in love with the finished results. One last thing I wanted to tell you guys was that I did do the Italian tubular bind off for the first time successfully. So I'm really, really stoked with how it turned out. I did it on both the, the cuffs and then also the hem down at the bottom. And I think that it turned out so beautifully. I also did end up frogging back from 20 centimeters from the underarm before I did the ribbing to like 17 and a half, just in case you like this length and you do decide to make a similar sweater. Of course, I could be taller or shorter than you, so it might turn out differently, but I think that this was... The perfect length for a crop. It's not really showing too much midriff or anything. It's just hitting right above the hip bone. So I do love how this turned out. And I'm so glad you all were able to keep me motivated, hold me accountable to getting this done before Halloween. We have one week to enjoy it. And then of course, years and years to come. As I mentioned, I did get some fun B-roll at the pumpkin patch. So I will definitely pop that in here after I say goodbye to you guys. But I just want to say, as always, thank you so much for keeping me company and helping me finish this Halloween. not sure it would have gotten done with the time crunch that we were in had i not had you all holding me accountable to pick up the camera and get this done. hope you all are having a wonderful halloween season and enjoy this halloweek. as always if you did enjoy this video i would like it so much if you would consider liking and subscribing and i'll be back in the future with more knitting and crochet related content very soon. thanks and happy halloween! to be or not to be a pumpkin. stupid.