I’ve knit and frogged the yoke twice because it’s just way too big. The stitch/row gauge is close, but the pattern just seems to include too many rows. I’m also using a stretchy yarn (Malabrigo Rios), so that may make it stretch more vertically when I wear it than when I measure the gauge lying flat. At the size I’m knitting, the front of the yoke is supposed to measure 8” before separating the sleeves, but I was getting 10” (after blocking).

My solution is to shorten the colorwork pattern by 12 rows. First, I knit up to Row 28 with no modifications, which is after two of the 5-stitch-wide “arrow” patterns. After that, I progress immediately to two 4-stitch-wide “arrows,” and then the “simple arrows” at the end of the chart. These simple arrows cover 9 rows and end up in the same position as the original pattern (i.e., ends on the leftmost corner of the chart). The result is a yoke pattern with 41 rows (=8” for me).

Using US4 for rolled neckline and ribbing, US5 for colorwork & body (edit: and US6 DPNS for sleeves to match body guage).

The “Mate” colorway by Malabrigo is part of their new Rios Solidos line. I’m loving it, it’s a perfect greenish/khaki neutral. The “natural” colorway that it’s paired with is maybe a bit too light for my taste, but so far I don’t see the dark floats through the knit.

PROGRESS AND MORE MODIFICATIONS:
JAN 28: First two tries ended up too wide for my 40” bust, so frogged and sized down to size B and went down a needle size to US5. I completed my modified yoke and the length is much better, but now I’m worried that it’s not wide enough. In the first all-white row I increased by enough stitches to match size C, hopefully that helps.

I cast-on 12 stitches at the sleeves instead of 9 (for size C) because others have mentioned having tight sleeves, and my arms are not small.

FEB 2: Knitted most of the body and tried it on and realized that I don’t like the boxy shape. Ripped back to ~2” below the armpit and adding waist shaping (dec 4 stitches every 8th row, three times and knitting until it’s a good length to start increasing again). This is a perfect amount of subtle shaping for me.

FEB 5: Body is complete. I knit to 12” before ribbing 2” and it still feels a bit short. I am a short person (5’4”) so I wonder if the original design is almost cropped. Maybe that’s more stylish, but I prefer to have full coverage when I raise my arms. My knitting for the ribbing at the bottom seems a little loose even with going down a needle size. I’m ok with this, I don’t always love tight ribbing, especially when it flips up.

Started the sleeves and noticed that my tension is much tighter on DPNs compared to circulars, so I ripped back and started the sleeve again with US6 to match the tension of the body. With the extra cast-on stitches that I included with the underarm, I have 53 st held on needles (size C) and 16 stitches picked up at the underarm (including the 2 stitches for each “gap”), so 69 stitches total (slightly larger than size C). The next step is to decrease two stitches, and although I don’t know if this is necessary I will try it. It leaves some holes that will have to be sewn up later.

Modifications to sleeve decreases to make the sleeves wider at the top: knitting for 7” before decreases, then do a decrease round (k2, ssk, knit to 3 st from end, k2tog, k1), followed by 5 rounds of knitting. Repeat the decrease/5 knit rounds 10 times. Then one more decrease of 1 stitch to get an even number of stitches (K4, k2tog, k to BOR). This will be followed by ribbing of the cuff.

FEB 9: I completed one sleeve to the end of the decreases, about to start ribbing. It’s nice and wide, and I’m happy with the modifications. The gauge is still looking a bit tighter than the body, I hope it will even out with blocking, or when it’s worn. The sleeves are pretty long already (16”) so I will just do 2” of ribbing for the cuff and hope it doesn’t stretch too long when it’s blocked.

FEB21: Completed, steam blocked, and blocked again with wet blocking because it was still uneven. I made a horrible error of re-knitting yarn right after frogging without soaking to get rid of kinks. This makes for a lot of uneven stitches throughout the body - lesson learned! My sleeve tension is quite a bit tighter than the yoke even though I went up a needle size. The sleeves did end up a bit long, but I will wear it a bit and see if it bothers me.