THIS IS THE BEST THING I’VE EVER KNIT EVER

There’s a few minor issues that I talk about below, but honestly, I adore this sweater and it’s hard to put on something else. It’s the perfect cozy sweater, and I’ve found myself lounging on the couch, petting my own sleeve subconsciously.

I cast this on Dec 15, knit through to the end of the cables on the front by Jan 23 (waylaid a bit by a baby blanket), then promptly abandoned it until mid-August. My WiP Name and Shame post finally relit a fire under my arse to finish this thing, and the Very Shannon SSKAL motivated me to keep powering through it. I finished it the night before the (extended) KAL deadline on Sept 23rd!

Mods:

Sleeves (to get them full length):

• Initially cast on 33 stitches instead of 36 on the sleeves and doubled the honeycomb section.
• Added 4 additional rows at the top of the broken rib section after all of the increases/before all of the decreases.

Body:

• To shorten the sweater, I only CO 80 stitches instead of 88 to get the length of size 34. So for length, I followed size 34, but kept any width repeats in size 42. This way I don’t have to alter the cable pattern and it just shortens the straight stitches below the neckline.
• Not a mod, but I charted out the cables to make my life much easier for knitting this monstrous/glorious section.
• Added one more repeat of last two rows of the texture stitch, since I think my row gauge is a little off (wish I hadn’t done that).
• Added an additional 4 rows to each shoulder before doing neckline decreases/after neckline increases to add more shoulder coverage. Then I just subtracted this amount from the width after the neckline decreases to wind up with the same overall width and a narrower neckline.
• Used the exact same mods from the front on the back, except that I also narrowed up the cable section by about 2.5 inches on the back.

Finishing/Hems:

• Stalked the heck out of mamatronic’s Henri tech knitting post to figure out how the sew this thing together. Wound up being easier than I psyched myself up to be.
• Picked up approximately every other stitch on the neckline, as per Allyson’s version.
• Picked up less stitches than suggested for the sleeves since they turned out ginormous. Unfortunately this has created a billowing effect on the sleeve and I might yet redo them.
• Did bottom hem (248 sts!) as instructed and it’s perfect.
• Did a crocheted slip stitch edge around the back of the neckline on the inside to stabilize it, since I was worried it would stretch out. Might still do this on the front if it starts to misbehave.

Overall I’m very happy with this sweater. My mods for the size 42 sweater reduced the width at the bust from 50” to 48” (so about 6” ease at my full bust, but 10” ease for my upper bust and thus the shoulder and upper chest area). I feel that this is still too much ease for me, and after pinching out fabric, I wish I’d removed 2” from the front middle (like for the back). This would’ve also narrowed up the neckline some more, since it’s still a little bit too wide.

Somehow, the sleeves wound up ginormous. I did block this a little aggressively (don’t forget that each piece is only HALF of the sweater), so I’m going to see if I can ease it a bit snugger next time I block it. But even if I don’t, this sweater is SUPER COMFY, so I’m fine with it. As mentioned above though, I will probably wind up redoing the sleeve hems to reduce the billowy effect.

Don’t care though, because I LOVE THIS SWEATER. IT’S GLORIOUS AND THE YARN IS AMAZING AND I’M NEVER TAKING IT OFF AGAIN.

If I ever knit this again, I’d probably do all of my mods, plus reducing the width at the front by 2 inches, and maybe knitting a smaller size on the sleeves to reduce their width.