4/28 finished body up to armholes. Did not add the pockets. Now to start sleeves. Using a provision cast on for sleeves. When the body and collar are completed I’ll go back and finish the sleeves.

5/2 Finished first sleeve.

5/6 Finished second sleeve. Now to attach the sleeves to the body.

5/7 Stayed up until 12:50 p.m. attaching the sleeves!

5/8 Had to go to my LYS to get help understanding the instructions. You know how you read the pattern fifteen times, still don’t understand it, and then have a second set of eyes look and it all makes sense? Well that happened.

5/9 Oops. So much for understanding the pattern. Its my mistake and not the the pattern. Gudrun says to read the entire section for shoulder and neck shaping. Did I? Kinda. Having to rip back five rows. :-(

5/11 Don’t know why this yoke shaping is so hard for me to understand but I’m finally back on track and making good progress. Switched to longer needles.

5/20 I brought this with me for a long weekend at the beach. I finished the first shoulder and the instructions then said to start binding off stitches. I am completely confused so didn’t do any knitting for three days! How do I finish shaping the back when I have bound off stitches? I need another trip the my LYS for help. :-|

5/22 Got help at my LYS…Thank you Fiber Gallery!! Missing a directions, such as, “work one WS row”, can have huge consequences. Finished the yoke today. Also finished under arms and neck with kitcheners stitch.

Many projects said the sleeves are too big. I think mine will be big also. I’ll decided what to do after blocking.

6/2 Bound off last night. I love the I-Cord bind off and the One Row Buttonholes. My buttons at a bit smaller so I used 3 stitches instead of four. Washed and blocked sweater today. It seems huge so I made give it a few minutes in the dryer on low since the yarn is super wash.

When the sweater is dry I need to decide on sleeve length. I started with a provisional cast on so I could adjust the length after the sweater was washed and blocked.

6/5 Not only are the sleeves too long, they’re too big so they look sloppy. Ripping out sleeves and reknitting with more decreases. :-|

The sleeves are knit bottom up. CO 50 stitches and increase 2 stitches 9 times until there are 68 stitches. I am now picking up the 68 stitches and knitting down. I want the wrist to be 40 stitches or about 9 inches so I have to decrease 28 stitches, or two stitches 14 times.

I want the finished sleeve length to be about 19”. I need to allow 2 inches (13 rows) for the cuff which leaves me with 17” to decrease 28 stitches. Seven rows equals on inch, so I have 119 rows (7 x 17) over which I need to space my decreases. I divided 119 rows by the number of decrease rows (119/14 = 8.5). I fudged and decided the decrease every 7th row. Wish me luck!

6/10 My sleeve modification was a fail. I think the decreases were to soon and too frequent and it changed how the yoke and shoulders fit. It made it look very sloppy. I should have listened to Gudrun Johnston! ;-)

6/22 I finally finished! I reknit the sleeves from the shoulder down. I decreased every 12th row 5 times and every 6th row 4 times. Total decreases was 28 with brought my stitch count from 68 to 40 at the wrist.

The color is hard to photograph. The pictures of the sweater on the paisley print are a more accurate.