10-17-2022

Aright the Luft is much better, makes the pattern look much more neat and crisp and the feel of the fabric is equally soft. Gauge is perfect and didn’t change much pre/post-blocking the swatch.

As much as I loved the green, I decided to go with a more natural color for this sweater… I don’t want to do all these cables just for them to not really show up because the yarn is too dark. I’ll do something else in this green in the future.

Took a few tries to cast on in a way I liked — ended up going back to the pattern’s Italian cast on after trying tubular with waste yarn a couple of times. I understand now why Anne has you do only 2 rows of tubular knitting instead of 4 — the slipped stitches create an almost float-like strand between the knit rib columns that I suspect doesn’t blend in to twisted rib as normal rib, so you only have 1 row of those on each side by the cast on.

11-03-2022

If you’re stumped on Row 3 of the short rows, read here! After I finished the turtleneck and started on the short rows, I got stuck on Row 3 because I had fewer stitches between markers for the back than would allow me to repeat the chart 3 times. I finally watched Anne’s Row 3 YouTube video and you can see at about 1:58 that you don’t actually knit the chart 3 times, you skip random stitches? I’ve knit from charts before but have never ever seen this, and never would’ve known to skip those random stitches without watching the videos. Hope others spot this note and don’t spend as much time tearing their hair out!

11-11-2022

For the yolk, repeating Row 1 and Row 2 really means going through 60 total rows of chart, with the odd rows using the Row 1 instructions and the even using Row 2.

But after you finish going through chart 1 and still have to get up to 30 repeats, I think you just have to follow the pattern on your needles rather than trying to go from the chart… it doesn’t make sense.

01-06-2023

Feeling really undecided about how long to make the body — I’m at 48cm from the collar join, and though I do want this to be oversized, the 58cm suggested in the pattern is probably going to my too long for my short torso / 5’5” frame.

So, I put the hem on holding yarn and am going to complete the sleeves first. That’ll help give me a better idea!

Also I hadn’t tried it on yet and the turtleneck is pretty long, wish I’d made it a little shorter… kinda works to triple fold it though

02-01-2023

All blocked and 95% dry and I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy with how a sweater turned out!

Some finishing notes…

• Doing the sleeves before determining the body length was the right move. I ended up making the body about 9cm shorter than the pattern suggests. Going to start doing sleeves first on all sweaters (note to self).

• Before blocking, the back was hitting shorter than the front, despite the short rows (and I did check 100 times to make sure I wasn’t wearing it backwards haha), so when I blocked I pinned the back hem but let the front hem just lay flat so that it’s a bit shorter. Idk what it is about my body type that makes this so much more flattering but it’s great.

• In an attempt to mitigate the long neck, I stretched and pinned it very wide while blocking, and that worked nicely. It’s less of a collar now, more of a cowl.

• Post-block the fabric feels much less bulky and fuzzy than it did while knitting up, but I’m actually very okay with this — I think it’s gonna make it a much more wearable garment.