Pattern is very well written and the sizing for me was perfect. I found the cables easy to work. The traveling cable section was difficult to tink down for corrections because the cables cross over 4 sts at a time moving across every 4 rows. I was successful in correcting mis-crossed cables in this traveling cable section by tinking the entire section and reworking back up across all the stitches in this patterned section.

Yarn: The Knit Picks Heatherly Sport knits up and feels like a full acrylic yarn. It is definitely more like a heavy sport weight closer to DK. It squeaks on my needles from the tight cable stitches. On the positive size, when wet blocking the finished garment the wool content allows the cables and the texture sleeve patterns to relax and block into shape. The finished fabric is soft with a slight halo due to the wool content and the slight abrasion of the heavy garment sitting on my lap during the knitting process from the bottom up.

My sleeves were just a bit snug (probably because I did not size up my circular knitting needle due to the small circumference) than I liked so I used my garment steamer to stretch the fabric and it worked marvelously - very similar to steaming a full wool yarn. It’s possible that I killed the acrylic but the wool holds the shape and size exactly as I wanted.

When wearing the sweater, I was pleasantly surprised that I did not “overheat” from the acrylic content. The wool mix allows for a finished sweater that breathes much like my lighter fingering weight wool sweaters. Although the garment is quite heavy, it was not as warm as my other DK weight wool sweaters.

I purchased 7/8” buttons instead of 5/8” because I loved how these matched the heathered colorway of the yarn. These buttons are just a smidge too big to comfortably fit through the smaller button hole. I coaxed these large buttons through and will leave the garment buttoned permanently and slip it on as a pullover. The neckline is large enough to accommodate this manner of putting on/taking off so no need to manipulate the buttons.

Test thread here River Melody
Due 15Nov24

Started waist shaping at 2.5” instead of 2”.
30Sep24: 5” tall center back unblocked is 20.5”
16Oct24: 12” tall
27Oct24: first sleeve done
08Nov24: Body done weighs 433 grams. Blocked.
1Nov24: Final sweater before buttons weighs 467 grams.