Sweetheart jumper (and procrastinating intarsia again!)

I have procrastinating starting my next project for a while now because I couldn't face learning how to do intarsia (even though one of my plans for this year was to learn how to do colourwork), and instead have been making headbands (see seedy bow headband and crochet bow headband posts). But enough is enough, given than my weakest aspect is starting a project rather than carrying on or finishing it, I decided to just start it and learn instarsia on the way.

The project is  sweetheart from the Domiknitrix pattern book, a gift from my 'mother-in-law' for Christmas. She also bought me four skeins of lovely and soft yarn, Artesano alpaca DK in a very very bright purple :) So I decided that, instead of just making a few small projects, it would make more sense to supplement the yarn and making the jumper - apparently she had also spotted it as a nice one to make from the book, so it just seemed like the perfect plan.

 

The jumper is a bottom-up construction that is knit in the round until just above the waist and the split into two, with the back done first, followed by the front (which has the colourwork). My plan is to get to the colourwork and then do a practice swatch - hopefully by that point I should be a bit more enthusiastic about learning this new skill. I decided to go for the small size (34'') and I'm hoping that it won't be too big, I was pretty much bang on with my gauge swatch using 4mm needles (as recommended), but I have had issues with sizing before, and it is really hard to tell with a bottom-up knit as you can't try it on. Fingers crossed!

Not gotten very far yet, but hopefully doable within about a month