I fell in love with Tomomi’s beautiful flowers, but I usually wear form fitting sweaters. I knit to the hem hoping to try a new style, but I swam in it. I ripped back to the bottom of the chart, reduced stitches in the last few rows, and tried smaller needles. It was weirdly puffy. I ripped back again and tried a more gradual reduction. It looked better on me, but I still knew it wasn’t really working on my frame. I started over using a long tail cast on (tubular cast on frustrates me) on US2’s, knit 1x1 ribbing (personal preference), switched to US4’s for the body. Reduced sts in background color of chart 5 last 14 rows. SSK, K2tog every 6 rows under each arm after charts. Still huge, so frogged back to row 58, and separated for arms on 62. Fit much better on my small frame. I fudged around to make complimentary charts for the 8 underarm stitches to avoid increasing after row 58. After charts, I decreased 2 sts on each side and for 2 back darts spaced 30 sts apart. I have a very small back. At 8” from underarm I had 172 sts- switched to US2’s. Knit 1 row; then 1x1 ribbing for 2”.

As others mentioned, I used ladderback for the first and last few rows of the chart. Since this is a fairly new skill for me, I needed to be mindful to stretch and go loose for each ladder and snug up the main color stitches on either side.

I decided to do a marling fade by changing out the fingering main color (fmc) and mohair silk main color (mmc). Row 39 switched fmc, row 44 switched mmc, row 62 switched mmc. After chart, I switched to deepest fmc and middle tone mmc and switched to deepest fmc and mmc for last 3 inches or so.

I frogged several times before I got a fit I could live with. I just don’t look great in a baggy sweater.