This pattern is SO MUCH FUN to knit! I could not put it down, and I’m already planning another. I finished it in just 10 days of knitting time. Highly recommended!

Yarns held double throughout. Multis are marled with a semisolid dark gray.

Here’s an important tip: When picking up stitches, spread them out so they extend the entire length of the square you are picking them up from. (For my size, it meant picking up three out of every four stitches.) Don’t just pick them up from consecutive stitches and leave a gap at the end. That gap turns into a weird wonky hole that requires some stitching and tugging to make it look okay (but if you did create the weird wonky holes, rest assured that it is possible to make it look okay). If you distribute your picked-up stitches across the length of the square, you get nice neat corners. Even where four squares come together, the corners look nice and neat when done this way. I’ve included a photo to illustrate the difference. And there’s a corollary to this advice: pick up your first stitch right next to the last stitch worked on the previous square. It looks awkward when you do it, but it works out really well.

I am not the first person to offer this advice, and in fact I was warned about this by Marg3016, who made a beautiful adaptation of this pattern. She pointed me to meeandu’s project page, where she originally found this guidance. I only wish I had understood it at the time, lol. But I seem to need to knit it to see it.

Another pro tip: Stop every couple of squares and weave in ends. There are SO MANY ends. You will thank yourself later.

The multi-row process Junko Okamoto uses for a tubular BO is by far the best-looking one I’ve seen. It’s absolutely worth the extra effort.

Modifications:
I wanted a less enormous sleeve, so I continued the side panel halfway up the third square before beginning to knit in the round (105 sts remaining). This decreased the armhole depth by several inches. Then I decreased the sleeve quite a bit more steeply than written. I probably would have been fine working the sleeve decreases as written, but I’m glad I reduced that armhole depth.

I CO 15 sts for side instead of 14, then decreased one in last row before beginning sleeve. There was no reason for this; I just made a mistake on the first side and duplicated it on the other side. However, this could be used to add width at the sides if needed. I just wouldn’t carry that slipped stitch line all the way down the sleeve.

Sleeve decreases:

• Work as directed until 90 sts. Then start decreasing every round.
• Decr every rnd 15 times.
• Then dec every other rnd for 6 rnds.
• Then dec every 3rd rnd.
• Stop decreasing at 46 sts (48-50 would have been fine).
• Work even until 12 inches from “underarm,” then begin cuff.

Neckline: At the points of the vees, I had a hard time picking up sts to fasten down the ribbing, so I just bound off the difficult sts (the increased ones) on either side of the exact point of the vee with a regular BO, working a couple of decreases on each side as I went. I picked up and did a three needle BO for that central stitch in the exact place I wanted it to be. Then later, I was able to come back and stitch those difficult sections down neatly. It gave a much nicer finish.

As for the color variations, well, I just kind of spread them out. No real plan, other than to avoid having two squares of the same color adjacent to one another. (Except for the “main color,” the black and white flecked with turquoise. I had much more of that than the others.) For the sleeves, I just used up what I had left. I tried not to make them symmetrical. I used solid color stripes for the side pieces because I knew I wouldn’t have enough of the variegated. In fact, I did run out of variegated for the ribbed hem, so I marled together the dark and light grays from the side stripes. It looks fine.

I’m a little sad I used up that whole collection of variegated minis. They’d been in my stash for a long time, just waiting for the right project, all sparkly and pretty and not quite matchy enough for most things. I took them out and considered them many times, and lingered to admire them. They were perfect for this project…but I will miss them.

US10 for all the plain knitting, US8 for rib, US 7 for tubular BO.