What a pleasant, relaxing & quick knit this was. I could have finished it a lot sooner, but I was taking my time with it, and I also procrastinated a bit after binding off before doing the finishing. That was actually the hardest part for me – deciding how far up & across to sew the seams.

This pattern has been on my “want to make” list for years. I’m so glad that I finally did! I really love it. The yarn was screaming at me from the shelves of my LYS. So pretty, and so soft, and when I started thinking about what I could make with it, this pattern came to mind as a perfect match. Each skein was exactly ½ of the required amount, and they each started at the same point in the gradient, so I could use one for the front and one for the back, and they would match.

I worked both sides at the same time, on a 40” needle, each with its own skein.

Cast on 98, as per pattern, with crochet cast on and size 7 hook (4.5mm)

Worked the sections in this order:
14 Rows garter
A: Eyelet
B: Drop Stitch
D: Mesh Stitch
C: Netting
B: Drop Stitch
A: Eyelet
D: Mesh Stitch
B: Drop Stitch
B: Drop Stitch
A: Eyelet
10 Rows garter

This was all as per pattern, except with an extra section A before the final garter edge. This was in the effort to use up all the yarn. And I was also hoping to maybe add some length, but it didn’t really succeed, because then I didn’t have enough yarn left to do the same number of garter rows as for the bottom. Oh, well. Six of one, half dozen of another.

The only other mod I made to the pattern was to knit 2 rows instead of 4 after the drop stitch sections. Otherwise, there would have been 3 garter ridges there instead of the 2 that are there after each of the other sections.

Another note for the drop stitch sections:
I found during the first drop stitch section that the wraps of the right-side rows were extremely difficult to pass over the join of the circular needle when working the return row 2. So, for subsequent repeats of this section, I worked row 1 onto straights, and then back onto the circ on row 2. This eliminated having to slide those stitches over any join. Since I was working both front and back at the same time, both pieces wouldn’t fit onto a single straight needle, so I worked each piece onto its own needle, then combined them again on row 2.

Other notes:
I seamed up 28 sts of each shoulder (approx. 6” before blocking), leaving approx. a 10” neck opening. I tried an 8” neck opening as per pattern, but it felt like I was choking.

I seamed up the sides to the top of the only netting section C (approx. 6” before blocking), leaving approx. 8” for the armhole.

I used up all but 1 gram of the yarn. I love when that happens! I would have used even that last gram, had I used the yarn for seaming, but I was hoping to use the leftover to extend the sleeves a bit, so I used a different yarn for the seams (1.5 gr of Ty-Dy Cotton, left over from my Mermaid Tee). Turns out I had only enough to do one round of single crochet around each sleeve, not even enough to do 1 more. So there’s an edging around the sleeves, but not really any more length (I did 50 sc around each sleeve, 25 on the front and 25 on the back, with the size 7 hook).

Finished measurements, relaxed after blocking:
26” x 16”
Armhole: 8.5”
Neck 11.5”