Quick start, so far so good. I am concerned about the amount of yarn I have, and whether it’s enough, but I am going to take a chance and go ahead!

14 Jan- gauge achieved with 3.5mm needles. Off we go.

16 Jan- HMMMMM, so I have followed the instructions, and I am now at the point where I am supposed to start the sleeves. This is worked from the bottom up, and so far t is 4.5 inches long. It seems awfully early to attach sleeves!? Maybe I am just forgetting how small newborns are? I will run this by the girls in the knit-group.

18 Jan- so the girls think that it really is ok to go ahead, newborns ARE supposed to be tiny after all. I guess it’s easy to forget. So I will continue. I also found a project page that is helpful, with photos that show the progress, and it seems I am on the right track! It is gingergooseberry

20 Jan- I have finished the 2 sleeves in the meantime, so now it’s time to attach them to the body.

HOLY COW!

The instructions work, that is not the problem, but it is ridiculously hard to proceed like this!!!!The only way is to have a really long cable that you try to pull through your stitches in places to give you some wiggle room. But squeezing 30 something stitches between 2 stitches is ridiculous!

It ends up stretching your body stitches and I am not confident that the tension will be fixable at this point. I guess we’ll see. I will try and take a photo to explain what I mean.

Stitches are falling, doing a K3tog is an insane expectation at this point, and since there are no number of stitches given that are expected, I am guessing….

So here’s what I ended up with once I joined the sleeves to the body:
front panel: 22 stitches on both sides
lace panel: 13 on one side, 14 on the other
Sleeves: 34 on one side, 36 on the other
Back: 58 stitches.

Obviously SOMETHING did not work out! So I painfully knitted the first row adjusting as I went and this is what I am continuing with:

Front panels: 22 stitches
Lace panels: 13 stitches (HAS to be according to the chart so I know this is correct at least)
Sleeves: 34 stitches
Back: 58 stitches

Also believe that the body stitches should have a starting point of 121 and not 119 as stated in the pattern.

Continuing on, because after having spent to much time figuring this out and trying to fix it, I am not going to frog!
22 Jan- Managed to knit about 18 more rows, and the further you get from the armpit the easier it is to knit, it’s starting to look decent. The underarm portion however it totally stretched out, and looks awful, I“ll see what I can do to fix it…

It’s done, and looks cute. except for the armpit portion, I liked this pattern, but be prepared!