Preliminary Thoughts:

• I’m not an OG PK fangirl as I’ve been burned by the ease included in the patterns i.e. the Balloon Cardigan and Cumulus Tee. But I have some drapey handspun and I sense that this pattern will work with it well. Having said that, I am prob going to be playing yarn chicken based on the amount of yarn it takes to knit the XXS or XS with a heavy sport-weight vs light worsted. And there is no more of this yarn cuz I made it and the fibre’s finished. The pattern is designed for Peer Gynt which is a more robust yarn than mine. I do, however, get gauge.

• This slipover does appear to use beautiful finishing techniques - as many others have indicated. And I do love some beautiful finishing.

• I don’t have much initial confidence in which size will fit me best - XXS or XS (though I worked out the dimensions for both, see XXS info below). It would be prudent to make the smallest size to preserve yarn. Having done the math, XXS seems like it will work given that both XXS and XS have the same horizontal dimension until the armscye increases start. The hip circ is moderated by the split hem so I’m not too concerned about it fitting in that area.

Pattern Dimensions At Instructed Gauge - XXS:

• Irritatingly, I had to spend lots of time determining the dimensions for both the XXS and XS because PK patterns do not come with schematics. Note - I’m confident in my math but you may wish to confirm this for yourself.

• Since gauge is not provided for the edging and neck that are worked on US4 needles, as instructed, I can’t reliably know what the circ of the turtle neck will be.

XXS Instructed Dimensions - Not incl Edging depth:
Shoulder width (before edging): 3.2”
Back neck width (before edging): 6.4”
Bust circ (before edging): 25.6”
Hip Circ (before edging): 36”
Armscye depth (before edging): 11.75”
Depth of inc segment of armscye (before edging): 3.5”
Depth of stockinette on bodice: 3.5”
Depth of ribbing on bodice: 3.5”
Full depth of bodice: 7”
Neck funnel depth: 2.75”
Edging for double knit plackets: 2.8” wide
Neck circ: Can’t provide, no gauge provided for rec US4 needle

The Knitting:

• Given the yarn sitch, I’m making the XS. If it doesn’t work in size, then I can give it to Miranda.

• Gauge swatch, which I’ll repurpose, is 8g.

• Back body was knitted with 80g.

• That means I have 172g to knit up the front, the plackets, the ribbing and the collar. Yeah - this is gonna be tight. Cuz I have to assume that the front will take the same amount of yarn (80g) and that will leave me with a max of 92g to knit the rest of the garment. I’ve gotta think for a min…

• OK - I have 40g of another handspun that’s a similar gauge and it’s in a heathered pink with slightly grey undertone. I can use this to make the plackets, if necessary. But before I decide to do keep on, I’m blocking the back body to see how it works out in terms of drape, texture (this is handspun) and sizing.

• I’ve blocked the back body and I love the fabric so I’m keeping on. My blocked measurements are aligned with what I determined by doing the math.

• My row gauge is short, post blocking, by 1” - my back body full length is 21.25” NOT the instructed 22.25”. It would appear that I lost the length between the start of the armscye increases and the hem as follows: my armscye increase depth is 0.5” shorter than the pattern instructs (according to my XXS math, above) and the ribbing is also 0.5” shorter than instructed. But the depth from centre back neck to start of armscye is the instructed 11.75”. So when I work that part of the front body, I should keep that in mind…

• When measuring the 11.75” on the front body, I did so from the neckline edge of the front cast on / pick up which is where the front and back meet at the same alignment. The back body shoulder shaping puts 1.5 (pre-edging and pre-blocking) of the shoulder-side cast on, on the back body so I can’t assess an accurate length from that edge. I do think that the instructions should have explained this more specifically because if you go from the shoulder side the dimensions will be off by 1.5”.

• Another way that I assessed how long the front should be is more complicated (but on blocking the front body I can tell you that it worked). To get to 11.75” on the back body (from centre back), I knitted 18R as instructed (back shoulder shaping plus CO). I then knitted ~70R to get to 11.75” in depth. (I should have paid attention to this to be sure from the start. Counting rows thereafter, in handspun, can be a smidge tricky.) So that means I worked ~88R to get to 11.75” of length.

• If I subtract 1.5” of length from the back body at the outer shoulder edge - because that effectively belongs to the front body given that the shoulder seam sits at ~1.5” below the shoulder on the back body - or ~12R at gauge - that means I’ve effectively worked 76R of depth on the back body.

• On the front body, incl CO row, I knitted 24R to get to the join of the front neckline. I then kitted 52R to get to what I believe is the correct depth - 11.75” from the inner neckline at shoulder. That also comes to 76R.

• I opted to block the back body first, to ensure I liked the fabric. Then I blocked the front body - a bit tricky cuz I had to keep the back body from getting wet, though I managed. This was to facilitate picking up all the stitches going forward. I also wanted to see how the full bodice draped and responded before beginning the next segments. In future, I’d just knit the back and front and block the duo once, before edging. And then block the final garment too, natch. Instead of wet blocking, you could steam the back and front before edging, to soften and unfurl the fabric, but it won’t give the opp to ensure that all of the vertical and diagonal measurements are equivalently open at the start. Picking up stitches is all about being even.

• I recommend putting a stitch marker at the point at which you start the armscye increases and the point at which you finish those incs / start the body worked straight. That will help you to block the pieces to the exact same dimensions.

• In the event that I choose to make this garment again, note the following:

• Back Body: On back body I worked 18R of shoulder shaping, as instructed, and then 70R to get to 19” of depth from centre back. Given that I was short on yarn, I worked 24R of stockinette straight, after working the armscye increase segment.I also worked 24R of ribbing (though I reckoned it would be a bit short given that it’s worked on the US4 needle).

• Were I to make this again, at the same gauge, I might work 26-28R for the straight stockinette and ribbing segments, depending on a variety of factors, including how I like the length of this version, once fully completed and blocked. That would get me to the instructed depth of 22.25”.

• Front Body: On the front body I worked the 24R shoulder segments, as instructed. Then on join of the front neck, I worked 52R to get to the same 11.75” depth of the back piece. That depth is measured from the neckline-side cast on. So, in future, I would work 18 fewer rows (presuming I get gauge) on the front segment that starts as of the join of the front at the neckline because the neckline drop eats up that number of stitches when you account for the position of the diagonal back body shoulder seam. Then, whatever number of rows you work for the stockinette body and ribbing on the back body, make sure you do the same on the front body.

Vest Egding:

• It would appear that I have 91g of my original yarn with which to do all of the edging - neck, arm and plackets. I do have an additional 40g of the secondary handspun as necessary. I will knit the neckline after the arm edging because, if I do need to use diff yarn, it’s best aligned with that segment. Maybe it won’t be necessary and, if it is necessary, it may only be so on the back plackets.

• Armscye Rib: I casted on 137st as my bodice is slightly shorter than instructed. Each armscye used ~13g of yarn - happily less than I was imaginging. But it’s still yarn chicken here…

• Neckband: I’m likely going to make this band the same depth as the armscyes cuz a) I want to save yarn and b) not sure that this yarn is neck-skin soft and c) if I want to wear this with a collared shirt, it can’t be a mock turtle neck. Update: I casted on 86 st, vs the 92 instructed, cuz that’s what I got when I followed the directions which is strange cuz I got stitch gauge. I did this 2x, to confirm that this did indeed seem like the right count for my garment, and decided to keep on with it. Thereafter, I only knitted 7R. I also skipped the double knitting (set up) rounds for the Italian bind off. Otherwise, I was concerned the neck would be too high for a crew and too tight.

• Given that I rarely work this technique, I forgot how to do Italian BO in the round so, though I did the set up of the first 2 stitches correctly, in terms of inserting the needle, I winged it when I got to the end. When I had 2 live st remaining, I re-picked up the first 2st on the needle (that I’d dropped from the needle after set up) and used them to complete the 4 steps. Then, with 2st remaining, I just pulled the yarn through first stitch on needle (knitwise) and second stitch on needle (purlwise).

• Not sure I love the neckline because I find it a bit bulky - esp given that I never knit 1x1 rib neckbands in DK-weight yarn. It’s not as elegant in this weight as in finer-weights, though I do think that blocking, once I’ve finished the plackets, will make a notable diff. Worst case scenario, I just pull out the sewn BO (not thrilling idea) and rip back the neck / redo it differently.

• It would appear that the neckband (quite altered from pattern in terms of circ and depth) took only 4-5g of yarn.

• As of completion of the neck, I have 63g. That gives me about 15.75g per placket. I sense that’s doable but time will tell…

• Side Plackets: I casted on 62st for the placket, but keep in mind that my dimensions are a bit shorter than called for in this size… I prob would have done fine to cast on 60st - the CO and BO do take up a bit of depth and one doesn’t want the plackets to be seen dropping below the line of the bodice.

• It would appear that each placket takes ~8g of yarn to complete at my gauge and vertical dimensions. That’s pretty reasonable, IMO, and it means that I will be able to complete this garment without utilizing the pink handspun.

• I rarely use the Italian CO as I find it quite fussy (and it always seems to take me 30 min to re-figure it out). I personally find it easier to work this CO by reading written instructions because, unlike usual, the visuals tend to confuse me. So I used this written tutorial: https://stolenstitches.com/blogs/tutorials/italian-cast-o.... I will admit that using it multiple times in this pattern has made it better understood than before.

• I’ve done quite a bit of double knitting AND modular knitting but I don’t recall doing them together. It’s such a great combo that produces a very sophisticated, firm finishing. I intend to use this method when I make my next cardigan. I’ll just sub this in for whatever button band is recommended. Particularly if one has curves, it’s optimal to use a band that has a lot of stability and I don’t think you can do better than one knitted in tight-gauge double knitting.

• I tried 2 diff buttons - one with shank, one without. The one with the shank is 1” and the other is the specified size (0.75”). If you go with larger buttons you may need to refine the length of the button hole. I actually prefer the proportion (if not the colour) of the smaller buttons. They work better with the width of the placket, IMO. Also, were I to use the larger buttons, 4 of these would add 10.5g to the weight of the finished garment. The smaller, metal, buttons add about 4g to the weight. I’ll just create a shank as I sew on the buttons.

• Plackets took about 29g of yarn for all 4. Many have said that they are a slog but I actually find the process of double knitting to be quite meditative. The needle is very small for the density of the yarn but that’s what produces an edge that won’t stretch out. It would be easiest to work on a smooth, worsted-spun yarn.

Final Thoughts:

• This is definitely a clever pattern and it’s quite enjoyable to knit because it isn’t boring and it creates a chic, RTW-style end result. I think that it’s considered a 4/5 in difficulty because you need to be confident in picking up zillions of stitches, doing Italian and tubular BO, and working Italian CO. I also think one benefits from experience in finishing and blocking.

• The finished garment is quite sophisticated in that pragmatic Scandinavian way. Having said this, not sure I’m going to like this for me. Time will tell. I’m still glad that I’ve made it cuz it uses up an awkward amount of yarn and it’s quite an enjoyable project.

• I love how the yarn worked out. It drapes beautifully and I think drape is key with this garment. This yarn is also sturdy so I won’t have to baby it. And it’s bright without being white. The undyed fibre spins up into a nuanced light grey that’s almost tonal.

• I sense that the finishing accounts for 35% of the knitting time and about 28% of the overall yarn usage (~60g). YMMV based on your gauge and yarn-weight specifics.

• Next time I’ll likely not do the tubular set up rows before working the hem and armscye ribbing (or the neckline - though I didn’t work the tubular set up this time on the neck). I’d prob work 2 more rows in ribbing to preserve the depth and then just work an Italian BO. The set up rows make the edging look a bit bulbous (as always). Should have followed my instinct on this one.

• I think it would be great if this garment were also sized for a sport- or fingering-weight - though you’d have to buy a whole new pattern for that :-). I haven’t found many slip overs in those yarn weights so I may just opt to remath this at a 24 and/or 28st gauge. This pattern truly doesn’t take that long if you take blocking 3x into consideration. It’s nice that, at this gauge, in a lofty yarn, given that you can block things flat, the drying goes pretty quickly.

• Note to self that this used 218g / 618y. It isn’t shown properly in the thumbnail of stash because it’s handspun. But if you open the stash page, notes tell the full story…

Completed Garment Gauge: In the end, my post-blocked row gauge ended up being as instructed (30R in 4”). My row gauge remained as per my swatch and as instructed at 20st in 4”.

Neck edging depth: 0.75”
Armscye edging depth: Just over 1”
Placket edging depth: Just over 1”
Hem ribbing depth: 3”
Neckline depth (not incl neck edging): 4”
Neckline width (not incl neck edging): 6.5”
Neckline width including edging: 4.25” (I might consider deepening the O neck in future versions. I might also consider working the neckband on a US3 needle for a more refined look.)
Shoulder width (not incl edging): 2.5”
Full length: 20.75”
Depth of armscye: 13” (or 26” circ)
Bust circ: 28.5” (remember no side fabric)
Hip circ (before buttons): 39”
Hip circ (buttoned): 37” - but this still doesn’t pull at the buttons, which are at the top of the hip circ, and the bottom is open like a split hem)

Gauge Swatching:
Preblocked US 6 stockinette: 19.5st and 32R in 4”
Postblocked US 6 stockinette: 20st and 31R in 4”

Preblocked US 7 stockinette: 19st and 30R in 4”
Postblocked US 7 stockinette: 19.5 and 29R in 4”

Other project considered: Arcuate Vest by Charissa - 23st and 30R in 4” Not feeling cables right now and I do want a slipover vs a vest. This reads more vest to me… Also, not sure that I’d get gauge in the cable pattern. So this is a pass.