My younger son and his fiancé are animators. When I saw this project on Pinterest I just thought it was the most charming idea particularly since I have seen a stuffed Totoro riding in their car.

Because she lives far away I drew her outline on a large flip chart using the measurements that she sent to me. That way I could at least hold up the sweater to her flat outline and get a fair idea if I was on the right track or not.

I mostly knitted size 4 but I cast on for the hips at size 5

I used sport weight yarn and size 3 (3.5mm) needles but I went down to size 2 (2.75mm) (per KonaSF’s recommendation) for the yolk and I think it was a good thing as I consciously loosened up my gauge to knit the stranded color work

The recipient didn’t want too high a neck so I did the little strip of pattern above the totoros and then the back short rows to make the back higher. Then about 5 rows of MC ribbing which I bound off with Icord in the green. I was hoping the ribbing would prevent the neck from curling. If the neck curled out too much I planned to frog the neck and knit the ribbing but with smaller needles and maybe decrease some stitches.

( I did frog the icord and ribbing and then reduced the stitches to 120 then knit the last row using this technique to prevent the neck from curling out.

Added in Some Bust Shaping.
I did some short rows at the front top just below the yolk to make a little shaping for the bust. I think I only added maybe 4 or 5 rows using German Short Row technique and I find it hard to see where I did it.

For the yolk I followed the instructions and graph laid out and shared so generously by KonaSF http://www.ravelry.com/projects/KonaSF/paper-dolls

Long Sleeves:
For the long sleeves I used details set out by Ghanima (thank you, thank you)

I just set aside the bottom 8 stitches on a stitch holder per the pattern and then I provisionally cast on a total of 60 stitches at each side to continue the yolk. I used the magic loop techique and it was hard knitting across these cast on stitches at first but as the knitting got wider, I was able to knit more easily. Perhaps if I had shorter needles it would have been easier.

I planned to knit down from the sleeve caps to the wrist starting with the 68 stitches at the top and decreasing as Ghanima suggests, 2 sts every 10th row until 48 sts/sleeve. The recipient of this sweater wants long sleeves down past her wrists. I put some thumb slits in the cuff and planned to edge the slits in I- cord.

( So at the wrist I added a stitch every 8 stitches to widen the hand part of the cuffs and knit the cuffs in corrugated ribbing. I didn’t edge the Thumb slits in I-cord because I think would have made them too bulky).

I used 5 balls of the slate grey color and needed to order 2 more balls for the sleeves. I ordered 2 of the blue but really only needed 1 and I ordered 2 of the green and may use a little of the second ball. The cost of the yarn came to about $120.

The yarn is absolutely lovely -- very soft, with a rather nice sheen. I could have used different colors but those were the colors she saw in a picture and liked and she favors more muted colors in general.

I’m very pleased with the final product. Thanks to everyone who wrote detailed notes on their Totoro projects -- they helped me a lot.