Started with a sleeve: and I’m glad I did. I had to do a complete re-design on them. As written, there is no shaping (so the cuffs are as wide with the biceps, which I hate) and they would be too narrow for me. 15” would give me zero ease, meaning I could not wear a turtleneck under it: which is very much what I plan to do.

So, less stitches were chained on, and I increased up until I had 17” width,then worked straight until the sleeve was the right length. I’ll play with the sleeve cap shaping when I have the fronts and back done.

And speaking of the fronts… I’ll also be making some mods on that. I don’t like the sorta crew neck, so I’ll be switching to more of a V neck shaping.

So fingers crossed, I’ll have a wearable project after I make all these adjustments.

I will say that the yarn is crocheting up beautifully! I may like this yarn crocheted better than knit!

Update 07/04/2014: oops, I thought I had 15 skeins of this yarn, but looked and only have 12 (and yes, that is even what I entered into my stash. hrumph). The back is at the armhole shaping and I’m still going. I’m optimistic that I have enough yarn based on how much is done and how much I have to do. I will be cutting it close (ya, I will use an other yarn for seaming). Hopefully, as with most of Berroco’s patterns, the yardage is way over estimated). At this point I figure it’s as much work to keep going and hopefully tracking down an extra skein somewhere than start over with another yarn.

Update 07/05/2014: finally figured out my left front (took three attempts to get the neckline shaping I wanted). Now I have to repeat it on the right front? eeks! However, the yarn consumption is much better than I expected. I have 3 whole skeins left and I have most of an other. So I will have at least two full skeins to do the button band. Probably more. So what’s left to do? I still have to tweak the sleeve cap shaping (my sleeve is about 2” wider than the pattern and I’ve got to decrease those stitches into the sleeve cap), the right front (started) and the button band.

I love the pattern stitch a lot. I’m thinking this might get made up again in a lighter weight yarn, maybe top down/seamless a la Doris Chan. I find increasing in the pattern stitch much easier than decreasing.

07/07/2014: yay for Berroco’s overestimates on yardage!!! The back is done. The front is done. I am on the sleeve caps (both sleeves are at the sleeve cap shaping, which I have to tweak to adjust to my widening of the sleeves). I have 2 full skeins, most left over of an other and a good amount left to finish the sleeves. Basically if I had used the Ultra Alpaca (and I like this pattern enough that I wouldn’t mind making it again), I estimate I would only need 8 skeins for my size rather than the 11 that they say. Looking at other finished ones, I see yardage all over the place, so maybe my experience is unique?

Update 07/08/2014: so at what point do I say that this isn’t the pattern at all? I’m mostly done with the seaming (meaning I have both sleeves in and the one side it totally seamed up). I wanted to make sure my sleeves draped properly since I modified them. First: they are too long… and that’s without the 2” border. I sort of expected that, but I can live with a “cuff”). However, the shoulders are waaaay too wide. Not a flattering fit at all. Since it’s a fit in sleeve, they need to fit. Now I’ve got to undo my seaming and narrow the shoulders. So at this point the only thing about this cardigan that is the actual pattern is the pattern stitch and the general A line shape. In retrospect, top down/seamless would’ve been the way to go.
since the shoulders are too wide right now, the sleeves droop. Narrowing the shoulders will bring the sleeves up to the proper placement and will help shorten the sleeve length.

Update 08/08/2014: so I ripped back the upper body on the fronts and back. I accidently changed my neckline decreases to every row rather than every other row. Hmmm… I thin I’ll keep it (as I really really don’t want to have to do it again!). Looks like I don’t have to adjust the sleeves (they actually do fit better with the additional decreases). To be honest, this should’ve been a very simple, straight forward project… and all these mods have made for a lot of “trial and error”.

I’ll also say that while I loved crocheting this yarn… it’s not so fun if it’s been crocheted, blocked, then ripped. It’s so soft and splitty that it was a bit of a nightmare to redo the upper body. Also there’s a huge difference on the stitches (it “should” block out… if not, the yoke will have a slightly different look than the body. We’ll say it was deliberate… at least the back and fronts match with a “yoke” look)

Update 08/16/2014: all back together and the front band done. I had done a bottom band separately, but it had an impact on how well it draped. So just ended up doing front bands. So a little soak, let dry then I’ll just need to do the front closure (probably do a frog or a simple loop/button).

Finished 08/22/2014: got a quick photo on my dress form. Will do a full photo shoot when it’s a bit nicer out (and my hair is dry). Overall, all the mods were well worth it. I love the way this fits me: probably the best fitting sweater I’ve made for myself. The sleeves are still about 2 rows to long, but not terribly so. The fit thru the shoulders was worth ripping back to fix. The only drawback? the section that I ripped and reworked is much more open than the original. I had hoped it would even out when I reblocked it, but it didn’t happen. I ended up with two toggle buttons using a crochet loop (again, better light I’ll try to get a better photo… the color of the yarn doesn’t help on this either!).

So for a quick and easy “around the house comfy cardigan” I ended up with a dressy/tailored “let’s got out to dinner cardigan”. I can live with that. Giving it a thumbs up!

Mods (to date):

chained 36 stitches for the sleeves, then increased every 2 rows until I had 17” wide sleeves. Will not do cuffs (as the 16.5” length is plenty long for me. edit: actually too long. I could’ve shortened the sleeves by about 2 rows). Now that it’s done, I could’ve made the sleeves a bit wider.

Adjusted sleeve caps to compensate for wider sleeves (extra decreases on the sleeve cap).

Decreased front openings every other row until I had 7 motifs left. (when I frogged and re-did the arm scythe shaping, I accidently decreased every row rather than every other row. Didn’t feel like doing it a third time, so the final version is every row for the neck line decreases).

Did extra decreases on the front and back arm scythe to make the shoulders more narrow. (removed 2 clusters on each shoulder)

Only did the front neck band rather than all the way around the body.

Used a textured stitch for the band rather than the sc