ETA 2022-02-10: Still my favourite outerwear pullover! The yarn is still holding up wonderfully with no pilling or sagging.

ETA 2015-12-22: This is totally my favourite pullover ever! I’ve gotten so much use out of it this autumn. It’s large enough for an extra cardigan underneath but not so large it looks sloppy without. The neck is high enough to keep out drafts without feeling constricting. And the yarn is so warm and soft and neither pills nor sags. Perfection!

General

• Love, love, love this! Perfect fit and it’s so comfy! And I love the ribbing accents!
• The yarn is much softer and nicer to work with than it feels in the skein. It also softens quite a bit from washing and develops a slightly fuzzy halo. It has a slight tendency to split but not enough to be irritating.
• Excellent pattern. Clear and detailed and very easy to follow. Only reason I printed it out on paper was for ease of keeping track of numbers.
• First time doing German shortrows. Worked very well but still think I prefer the Shadow-wrap method.

Mods

• Followed the advice here and knitted one row of stockinet in MC before starting on the neck ribbing. It makes the change from CC to MC look much neater.
• Knitted 18 rows collar rib.
• Using lifted increases - on the left of the stitch before the ribbing and on the right of the stitch after. Ditto for the body increases.
• I hate too tight upper sleeves on pullovers so made sleeve increases too in section 2 (57 sleeve st).
• Had to pick up 7 stitches under the sleeve to make the ribbing match up = total of 72 sleeve st.
• Sleeve decreases: First decrease after 23 rows, then decreased every 13th row 4 times, every 7th row 4 times, every 2nd 1 time - k2tog after the ribbing and ssk before. Knitted 1 row, decreased remaining stitches evenly over the stockinet part of next row. Started ribbing on row after that.
• Made ribbing 15 rows.
• Knitted body 38cm before starting on ribbing. Did 16 rows of ribbing.

Timeline
2015-09-10: Finished the collar.
2015-09-12: Didn’t like how some of the purl increases turned out so unraveled all the short rows and did over.
2015-09-17: Separated the sleeves and continued with the body.
2015-09-23: Finished the increases on the body and took a break to start on the left sleeve.
2015-09-26: Finished the left sleeve and knitted some more on the body.
2015-09-28: I suspect I shouldn’t have done all those decreases on the sleeve. It feels quite tight. I’m probably going to have to unravel it and start over. Bother!
2015-09-29: Finished the body and unraveled almost all of the sleeve.
2015-09-30: Started on the sleeve again. Knitting both sleeves in tandem.
2015-10-06: Finished the knitting! Only washing and blocking left.