Love this pattern - versatile and flattering. Don’t be misled by the simplicity, there are nice details and a great upper-body fit, and lots of room for variation in the A-line body - beads, lace, different rates of increase, different lengths.

I wanted to knit something with this yarn that I bought at Stitches West ASAP! It is such a bright happy colour.

Mods

• start off with S, although 4 stitches doesn’t make much difference, and increase to M
• knit one round with bigger needles before starting short rows
• followed Bunny-B’s suggestion for the yoke short row decreases (below). This leaves a bit of a holey connection, but following the pattern leaves a bit of a ridge, so personal preference.
• cast on 5 stitches at underarm when splitting off sleeves to make up for size M stitch count - 2 at back and 3 at front.
• bust darts (below) - followed Ultimecia’s instructions more or less.
• after the first couple of inches increased every 5th row instead of every 4th. Just slavishly following others, then increased every 6th row, after about 8 inches from underarm. Ended up with 324 stitches at the lace section.
• lace pattern at the hem from the My Honey yoke. I thought about beads and was sorely tempted, but decided on the lace, inspired by Nutellabrezel’s beauty, which incorporates another pattern - Flourishing by Cecily Glowick McDonald.
• no longer hem in the back and no split hem - just 8 rows of garter with smaller needles after the lace with the larger needle for the bind-off. I did a stretchy bind-off but it was too floppy.

Sleeves

• picked up 5 stitches from underarm cast-on, plus 2 for the gap (83) and decreased 1 each side on row 2. Got rid of 3rd front stitch on row 4 (80).
• then followed pattern with decreases on row 12, then every 12 rows until 60 rows. I decreased at rows 70, 80, 90 then 95, 100, 105, to end at row 110 with 58 stitches left. 9 garter ridges for cuff, starting with k row.
• I originally knit longer sleeves with more decreases, but decided to stick with the pattern more or less and have shorter, wider sleeves. I think this looks good overall.

Yoke short rows: instead of the YO and p3tog or sssk, I just turned, skipped the yarn over, slipped the first stitch, k2 tog or p2tog at the end of the row. You need the YO for the last row, when you are only knitting 2 together, otherwise you will be 2 stitches short.

Bust darts: Added short rows for bust: 5 turns each side 5 stitches apart, starting 3.25 inches below underarm. First turns 30 stitches from side markers, then add 5 stitches ending last turn at 10 stitches away from the side marker.

Lace insert - did the Miniature Leaf pattern 4 times (6-row repeat).

Note about the yarn: this was my first experience with single-ply fingering. I love how it takes the dye. I found when I first started knitting with super-sharp cubic needles that I snagged a lot of stitches. I blamed the yarn for being splitty. When I switched to my usual Addi lace-point circulars the splittiness and uneven stitches disappeared pretty much. Clearly, the wrong needles for this yarn (or - operator error). I think I still prefer a plied yarn, but this turned out really pretty.

• project weighs 320 grams, with 20 grams left.

• I was tempted to make this longer to use up the yarn, as this pattern would look great as well if it was longer, but with the lace, I didn’t think a long hem worked as well.

Pattern Guage: 24 stitches and 34 rows = 4 inches in Stockinette stitch