March 11
Swatched. This yarn is soft as kitten’s dreams! Made gauge with the stated L hook, but grew a TON with washing, so more swatching is in order.

FYI - there are two ways to do the twisted TSS. The magazine instructions were unclear, so I looked at YouTube videos. Kim Guzman’s tunisian videos are excellent, but she twisted her stitch the other way & my swatch looked nothing like the magazine photo….I was throughly confused at that point. Then went to the website ‘my tunisian crochet’ and there is a video for ‘slanted TSS’ that when combined with regular TSS DOES result in this stitch pattern. Jennifer Hanson of Stitch Diva Studios also has a video of this stitch pattern. I will say for the record that Kim’s version is easier to do IMO, but I want my sweater to look like the mag, so I’m doing the other version.

If you look at my gauge swatch, where the pin is pointing to the first row, these stitches are Kim’s style. It adds that little twist to the top of the stitch. Neat, but not for this project.

Also…comparing the dimensions on the schematic vs. stitch count & gauge in the pattern, im not sure which size I’m going to make… I may try to add some shaping. I’ll experiment on my next gauge swatch.

Mar 13
Experimented with increases & decreases. Think I have a decent solution for both. Will work 40”, then dec down to 35” for waist then back up to 40. I plan to put this shaping at the sides to not break up the lines of V’s on the front & back. Will do 35” sleeves. If I have enough yarn I would like to make longer sleeves.

I will alternate balls to mix up the color shifts.

Looking at stitch counts & doing the math, all the dimensions on the schematic seem off (too big). Very confusing. I’m just going off the stitch count & doing my own math. After washing, my swatch with a K hook was spot-on.

Mar 14
This yarn working up reminds me of some view of outer space…found an image of the Eagle Nebula that perfectly catches it!

Cast on, off and rolling. Decided to stick with the 40” sleeves because the math was getting too complicated with that and my increases/decreases. My eyes were crossing! BUT I am going to take a few stitches out of the underarm, and add those stitches to the front panels & decrease them out at the front V for a slightly deeper V neck.

Mar 19
Coming along well but I’m so busy right now I don’t have much time to work on it. Sad because I doubt I will have it done in time to wear to the Pittsbugh Kint & Crochet festival, but I’m taking classes with the designer & thought it would be cool to wear one of her patterns!

Mar 20
Up to row 29 of body, have used slightly less than 1 ball. Worked even 7 rows. Then began decrease pattern (1 row dec 2 stitches at each side seam marker, work 2 rows even) 5x. Worked one extra row even, then will repeat pattern with double increase at marker 5x. This will get me to row 36, and back to stitch count for 40”. then I will begin front neck decreases on row 37. I will dec each side 4x for total of 8 stitches instead of only 4), ending on row 44. Then I will divide for fronts / backs as written, except only decreasing 14 stiches under each arm, not 16, to make up for the extra 2 dec on each front neck. I will take 1 stich out on either side of the sleeve for size 40”, so the underarms match. Why? To give myself a slightly bigger front than back (boob room) and narrow sleeve slightly.

Mar 22
Finished body. Used less than 2 of my 5 skeins. Definitely small, really hoping the FO grows as much as my swatch did!!

Started sleeve 1, will definitely have enough yarn to make long sleeves, so started with 30 stitches, will increase one on each end every 4th row to 48 stitches.

Mar 23
Finished sleeve 1. Really, really worried it will be too small. What if the FO doesn’t grow like my swatch did? The rational part of my brain knows if anything it will grow more due to the weight of the garment. But right now it is so small I’m very nervous….

Mar 27
Been so busy frantically working that I haven’t updated…
Done! At 2 am, but done. Hope it’s dry by morning or this was all for naught!

Mar 28
Wore it today at the Pittsburgh Knit & Crochet festival for a class with the designer! That was very fun. I asked her about my confusion on the schematic dimensions. She said the dimensions include the width of the front bands (the magazine does not say, and the way the schematic is drawn it is not clear) which helps a lot. She had the original sample at the class which was neat to see. Comparatively my yarn is definitely a light DK. In the end I wish I had made it a little bigger, but it works. The fit is pretty good but I need to stabilize the neck edge as if falls off my shoulders. The designer suggested a grosgrain sewn inside.