Maybe add a bicycle somewhere … from the Alter knit stitch dictionary by Andrea Rangel.

… maybe add a pocket, too

Doing the more slender sleeve option. Very easy, very clear pattern so far. Intending to do small bicycles just above the bottom rib with maybe one on a little patch pocket and one above a sleeve cuff. Won’t do a big bicycle this time. I am thinking that the yoke ribbing could be inadvertently a great thing for our intended purpose as it doesn’t have to be blocked flat and could help ensure the jumper will be able to be worn through a fair amount of growing.

Figured out that the little bicycles will take around 3.5cm vertically, so I will knit to 26.5cm from the underarm and do the bicycles.

I think there might be an editorial mistake in the pattern. There is a note in the middle of section 7 indicating that the count should be 10sts less for those doing the slender sleeve option and I think that note is actually supposed to go at the end of section 6. It doesn’t make sense where it currently is. I have asked about it in the Hinterm Stein group and I am awaiting a reply.the designer replied and said I was correct in assuming that the note was in the wrong place and that I was supposed to have 150sts, as I thought. She said she was going to fix the pattern It was so nice of her to reply!

It is looking very dress length! The visual proportions might change once the sleeves are added, but I might end up doing some surgery to remove rows in the body. I have given Aunty Yvonne the measurement from armhole to the top of the ribbing but I don’t think it would be any easy task to measure Rohn! We will see what happens …

Aunty Yvonne measured one of his t shirts and it was 28cm from underarm to hem, so this jumper should go over the top nicely … glad I checked, though!

Neckline done. Not so happy with it but it might grow on me. It looks to be more of a short funnel neck shape rather than a band that sits in against the skin - but I could be wrong. I ended up picking up stitches wherever it looked like I should, making sure to try to match the knit columns especially. I didn’t worry so much about the purls. Extra stitches picked up in the purl areas were gradually decreased away over the first two or three rounds. A round in the same yarn as the bicycles was done two rounds from the end. I only did eight or nine rounds and only a two stitch icord in order to reduce bulk.

The other thing I realised today was that a couple of the balls of yarn look to be a slightly different colour - either a different dye lot or a completely different colour, I’m not sure which. I wanted to make sure the neckline was in the same colour as the body, which is why I did it next. I am considering doing the sleeves in the different colour so they match each other.

The larger bicycle motif will actually fit quite well on the sleeve above the elbow so I decided to put one there on the left sleeve and try out the ladder back jacquard stranded colourwork technique at the same time - seems to work well so far

Two round stripes at the top of right sleeve and one round stripes at the bottom. Sleeve cuffs match each other.

The pocket was interesting. I marked out (stitch markers) approximately where I thought it should go and the centre of that area at the bottom. Picked up stitches across the bottom, making sure to centre it in that area, leaving a few stitches in order to round the corners so that things don’t get stuck in the bottom corners. Knitted across, increasing at each end (until the desired number of stitches was reached - actually, I increased a few too many which has meant that the pocket is 3D). Before the last stitch and then first stitch of every row was worked, I pulled a loop of yarn through one arm of the appropriate column of stitches that I had marked out, and then pulled that loop through the stitch to be worked, thereby creating the worked stitch, putting that loop onto the needle. The background is two row stripes. There are two small bicycles in stranded colourwork, both facing towards the centre of the pocket. The most difficult thing was getting the tension correct at the side stitches. Contrary to what is usually needed in stranded colourwork, I found it best to pull the loops that are hooked through the jumper quite firmly - pity I only found that out half way through! Two stitch icord at the top of the pocket.