February 25, 2023

I tried many swatches with white, cream, and grey mohair and pink suri. I just prefer this beautiful yarn’s coloring without being muted by mohair and I don’t like the shiny silk strand contrasted against it. And as a turtleneck, not sure I love mohair against my neck so against popular opinion I am knitting just one strand of Noro silk garden. I’ve never been normal so I guess this should be expected.

My gauge swatch is about 1/2 stitch short of gauge and i think that will be perfect for me to knit size 2

March 3

Well I made a super bonehead mistake. I just finished the yoke and I’m so loving the continuous sleeve work, that I’ve just been zooming along, when I just realized that I did 56 rounds without doing the increases at the back sleeve markers. I was so excited that I was going to be done with this next week and I am so upset with myself. Anger is such an unproductive emotion, so just going to tear out 56 rows and only cry a little bit.

March 7

Separated sleeves and started working the body a couple of days back. I learned when I counted the body stitches that I was 8 stitches short and realized I skipped the extra shoulder section for “all sizes except size 1” when I tore out the yoke back to the beginning of the sleeve increases. Must have forgotten I was making size 2. UGH. I really hope I didn’t destroy the proportions of the drop sleeve now. When I tried it on, I observed that it looks more raglan than drop sleeve at this point, sadly. Hopefully blocking will really expand the stitches. To ensure I maintained the ease I planned, I added the missing stitches to the underarm and I guess I’ll hope for the best. Why do I love and hate knitting lol.

March 10

I’m knitting the split hem option. I knit 10.5” then switched to size 6. The pattern isn’t clear to me as to how stitches are added. It says to add 4 AFTER the marker, which technically would be 4 stitches on the right of the front side and 4 stitches on the left of the back side, as opposed to 4 stitches on each end. I asked the designer but haven’t heard back yet. I went ahead and made the increases on both sides because it just makes sense. i knitted two rows in stockinette in size 6 before beginning the ribbing to hopefully eliminate any gapping from the body to the ribbing. i decided since I’m making the turtleneck option, I prefer a twisted rib in appearance for that neck, so I’m knitting all the ribbing in 1x1 twisted rib.

March 10, 2023

Will i ever not frog and Reknit a sweater several times? Probably not. Did not like the ribbing on size 6, nor did i like the extra stitches to sew down, so frogged it and started again in the main needle size without the extra cast on stitches and much prefer it.

March 16

Finished the 4” ribbing for the back bottom hem but decided to complete the turtleneck before I bind off to ensure the length isn’t shortened by the neck being drawn upward. 5 of 8” completed of turtleneck.

March 20, 2023

Finished hem. Bound of hem and neck with Italian bind off. My first time and I had to tear the hem out once and redo it but I really like it.

Started sleeves. If I have enough yarn I want to make the neck 2 inches longer

March 23, 2023

Finished first sleeve. Made straight sleeve ( no tapering) with cinched cuff. Size 7 DP needle and twisted rib. Italian bind off.

I think I’m going to want to make this sweater over and over utilizing the various options for sleeves and hem and collar. And I doubt I’ll use twisted rib again. I love the look and it’s what I wanted for this yarn but it takes SO long. Currently 48 sleeve cuff stitches per round are taking almost 9 minutes, so like 4-5 hours per cuff. Yikes!

March 27

Added an extra 2 inches to the turtleneck. Ends woven in and wet blocked.
Can’t wait for it to dry!

March 29, 2023

Well it was finally dry after wet blocking and I excitedly tried it on… the length and fit of everything is perfect, except the top of the drop sleeves blocked into a point so it looks like little ears are sticking out of my upper arm. Womp womp Re-soaked the sleeves and am trying having it laying folded in half down the middle front and back to have the sleeves dry flat. So bummed