Mar 27: Received my Primrose eau de nil kit. Yarn quantities correct. Very excited. Must do my Magnolia first. Eau de Nil is a kit with more blue and less pink released in March 2021. I have the kit and 33 required balls. I plan to skew the colour even more to the blue tones with less pink. Colours will be different than listed in Rav data base. Also note I added this yarn to my regular inventory. I will use leftover part balls first.

I want to add length so I may use from my stash as well as from kit.

Mallard is not one of specified colours. I want extra length and plan to insert one large motif from Marie’s gift box edition 2, Mulberry wrap, and shall use some Mallard in that motif. Actually no, I didn’t use Mallard.

I cannot achieve Marie’s tension. I shall use the 3.25 needle but I know both stitch and row gauge will come out smaller. Therefore I shall follow pattern for XL but believe I will get a sweater just a little bigger than her Large which is 43” around, but not nearly as big as her XL of 50”.

April 29: Hallelujah the body rib is done.

May 1: Completed first motif - the one I am adding for extra length. It is 33 rows.

Tension/size check: 32 rows are 4” so 8 rows per inch. Width, admittedly unblocked, seems to be 44.5” around. 360 stitches divided by 44.5 is 8.08 sts per inch. I put on two circulars and slipped it on. It is a good fit at hips. My target length is 25”. Rib and first motif give me 7.5”. 63 rounds to underarm per pattern should give me another 63 / by 8 or 7.875”. 7.875 plus 7.5” = 15.375 to underarm. Assuming yoke is another 9.5 - 10” I should be where I want. All good. Ever onward.
May 3: Moving on up
May 5: Complete to underarms. All divided up per instructions for row 63. Must knit sleeves next then join to knit yoke and sleeves together in the round. I am going to cheat and cast on with provisional CO and knit sleeve rib last.
First sleeve coming along. Just 25 rounds left. I started lower on Primrose motif because my row gauge is smaller. Then as I worked up I realized sleeve would be too small around.(Note many have suggested Marie’s sleeves are not generously proportioned.) So I switched to 3.5m needle. Even so my tension is still smaller than suggested, (7.5 rounds versus 7.25 to inch) but sleeve does go on my arm. Sleeve wiĺl be longer than originally planned however. Very glad now I did not knit rib cuff to start. Will knit as much cuff as I need to prevent rolling and to fill in to where I want it to end.
May 11: Second sleeve launched.
May 13: Second sleeve finished. Tomorrow will set up the yoke.
May 14: Have my yoke all set up with the 2 plain Eau de nils colour and all marked into 24 stitch reps. Sure is gangly with the sleeves barely attached and flapping around at the sides. Also I need multiple needles to get around the sleeve bend. I think after few rounds I can work on one longer needle.

May 18: Have hit a problem I cannot solve. After joining in sleeves and reducing stitches to 504 I knit rows 1 - 18 of chart C. Looked great but the sleeve portion was too small for my arms. Ripped back and set up sleeves again but did not reduce stitches but rather increased by 8 so I had 528 stitches or 22 reps of chart C rather than 21. With just a little fudging I set up the 22 motifs so that on front the ‘diamond point’ of chart C is centered over the Primrose and the ‘X’ of chart C centered over Primrose on the back. I knit to row 10 and again all looks good, and my arms fit into the sleeves. I just feel anxious that my arms will be too big whenever I start decreasing. I am mindful I must decrease an extra 24 stitches in addition to the decreases set out in pattern. I cannot deal with the suspense of 500+ rows that may well have to be ripped out again. Between my strange tension and 14 inch arms I suspect I am doomed to failure for this design. But these sweater motifs are beautiful and I want it to fit.
My solution: Take out the last 12 rows, to beginning of 2 Eau de Nils and set up again for a classic pullover with steeks for neck (maybe my fave V-neck) and sleeves. I will shape for set in sleeves and work steeked sleeve heads for the sleeves which of course are complete to underarm. Nothing lost there.
May 25: Body is complete and arms are done up to underarm. What remains is my least fave thing: designing the sleeve caps. Weather is gorgeous and I am tired of wool. Going to tuck this away til early fall. There is a distinct point each year when wool calls me back. Now it is time to welcome summer, and with luck, the end of lockdown. Time to root out my linen stash.

Dec 21: So my Christmas stuff is finally under control. Would like to complete my Primrose.

My plan is to mark off with yarn line where to trim shoulder/armhole for a regular set in sleeve. Then needle felt a half inch or so and cut. Shall put some underarm stitches on a holder and pretend they were cast off when I knit the body. Then design a sleeve cap. Sleeves are already knit to underarm except for cuff. I started sleeves with provisional caston as I always planned to knit them last.

Then last, and one of my fave things knit the border for the deep V neck.

Dec 23: What relief. I solved my sleeve prob. The main problem was the arm just barely fits all the way up. I was afraid cap would also be small when I cast off 8 or 10 stitches to make it correspond to the cut in on the body. This is always a prob for larger busts. In colour sequence the rounds immediately before underarm cast-off and the first cast-off are plain Eau de Nil to match body. I increased evenly around by 10 stitches which gave me the quantity of stitches for XXL in Iona pattern from Cherish. I just made sure one motif was centered at shoulder. Then I followed the Iona sleeve cap pattern from there but used charts from Primrose. (mostly) Picture shows sleeve very roughly basted into armhole and while not perfect it will do and the fit feels great. Yahoo. Will quickly do 2nd cap then just fun stuff left -- sleeve cuffs and V neck band.

Incidentally I ultimately knit this back and forth in two sided stockinette -- no steeks. (After Moroccan Tile a mere 100 stitches decreasing as I go seemed easy without steeking.)

Dec 25: up early to bake my pecan dried cherry sourdough and finished the 2nd sleeve cap. Set in one sleeve. Tedious work so for a Christmas day reward I worked the border for the V neck. (picked up 159 sts for neck rib) Will sew in other sleeve tomorrow.

Dec 26: OK that’s it. Both sleeves in, felted body edges sewn down and both small sleeve cuffs complete.

Just need to calculate yardages, enter final measurements and take pics.

Final Measurements:
Length 25”
Bust 45”
Waist 43”
Bottom band unstretched 20”
Sleeve Length 17.25”
Upper sleeve width 16”