Knitting with reclaimed yarn from a previous sweater project that doesn’t fit any longer.

Mods:

• My gauge was 17st/4” instead of the pattern’s 18st/4” so I made the numbers for the 40” size and it came out just over 42”.
• I knit the body in the round, though I did the sleeves separately and seamed them in as per pattern.
• I added a bit of A-line shaping to the body (6 or 8 added stitches each side IIRC).
• I didn’t do the shaped ribbing split hem, just a normal hem of 2x2 ribbing with about 10% more stitches than the body, decreased as the stockinette started.

Also, I had trouble with the top as written - I wasn’t happy with the neatness of pickups along the shaped front, the neckband flared out over the central cable, and even with a stretchy bind-off it was a tight squeeze over my head because each piece had been bound off inflexibly at the top.

To fix all that, I pulled out the top part of my sleeve seams on either side of the front piece and frogged the front back to the row before the final central cable cross. I re-knit the front with short rows, turns spaced so that the final shaping and number of rows was the same as written, ending on a RS row. Then I re-seamed in the sleeves (front stitches still live) and picked up around the rest of the neckline. I decreased 4x at the centre front on the second purl round, to stop the band flaring out where the cable pulled the fabric in, and bound off with EZ’s sewn bind-off. This came out much more neatly, and not binding off the front piece before adding the neckband made it more elastic for getting on and off.