12 Nov 2018: FINALLY DONE with the pocket seams. Uggghhhhhhhh. I think they took me a total of 4–5 hours. I used some leftover, high contrast Wollmeise to mark where I wanted to sew the seams, which was helpful. Still, I had to rip back and redo parts a number of times to make things symmetrical and figure out how to seam it without the stitches showing on the right side. The bottoms of the pockets took me the most time to figure out… I ended up doing kind of a duplicate stitch thing on the purl bumps of the hem on the wrong side. The pocket seams are what made me push this into “medium” on my rating of the difficulty.

Now I just have to wash it and dry it and I CANNOT WAIT. I love, love, love it already and know it will get a lot of use!

16 Oct 2018: I am finally back to this after a hiatus. Finished the sleeves. Used Jessica Joy’s tutorial for grafting the sleeves.

Just have to sew the pockets now. I’ve put basting stitches on one side; I am planning to use slip stitch, though Cap Sease says she likes mattress stitch better. I’m not sure what to do as I don’t want a ton of bulk. I might just try the slip stitch and see what I think. Not going to lie… this part seems daunting. I’m hoping that these tutorials from Tricksy Knitter and Coco Knits will be helpful! Unfortunately, the upper part of the pocket is being joined to stockinette and the lower part is joining to that sideways rib, which seems harder than it probably actually is.

2 July 2018: It has been a frustrating two days in my knitting life! I had been humming right along on this project (and very pleased with how it was turning out) until… until… I got to the cuff of the first sleeve. I cannot tell you how stupid I have felt over the last two days as I have tried to figure out how to cast on the provisional stitches in such a way that it (a) used the working yarn and (b) could do the ssk join with the arm stitches.

I FINALLY figured out how to make it work. In the interest of maybe sparing someone else my agony, I’m posting my method here. It’s probably not what the designer intended, but it worked for me. (I was hesitant to ask another question in the designer’s group forums, because my last question on this project was pretty dumb and would’ve been easily answered had I updated the pattern file.)

Setting up the cuff
Note that usually I work in the round on two sets of circular needles (not magic loop).
You will need TWO spare needles (or needle points, so if you’re using circulars, one circular is fine, but be advised that you will use both ends/points; I think this is where I went so wrong initially).

1. Do the provisional crochet CO on one end of the spare circular.
2. Using the other end of that spare circular needle, and the working yarn (which should be coming from the last stitch of the last sleeve round), do row 1 of section 12.1. You’ll need to get the spare circular next to the circular with the last stitch of the sleeve so that the working yarn is accessible, but you’re NOT using the needle tip holding the stitch with the working yarn. (This is what vexed me so badly… I just could not figure out how to knit row 1 with the working yarn using the needle tip holding that stitch. That’s really dumb, I know.) Everything is entirely on the spare circular needle at this point—the provisional CO stitches in waste yarn plus the worked row 1 in the working yarn.
3. At this point, what I did was to now slide the provisional CO and the worked row 1 off the other end of the spare circular needle and onto the original left needle, which was holding the beginning of the round of the sleeve stitches. This way, the stitch to be joined using the ssk at the end of row 2 was on the same needle as, and next to, the first stitch of the last sleeve round to which it is to be joined.
4. Work row 2 and subsequent rows as you did with the bottom hem. It should now (finally) look both familiar and correctly positioned.

Again, there is probably a simpler and more obvious way to do this. Two days of thinking about it (and doing the provisional CO over and over in the few minutes I had to knit each evening) got me here, and it works, so I’m moving on.

30 April 2018: After finishing Tender Bud/Fatal Atmosphere, I picked this back up. I was unsatisfied with the YO-like holes I’d gotten on the picked up neck band, and I was also unsatisfied with the way the increase stitches kind of wanted to separate on the left arm side (where I’m also alternating skeins every two rows because Rios), so I ripped back to picking up the stitches on the ribbing. I went in a bit more to be sure I was picking up through both sides of the stitch, and it turned out much better. We’ll see if I can snug up the left side increases without making that side too tight (as often happens when I have to carry yarns).

Handy link for m1pL and m1pR (and also for m1L and m1R to always remember which is which!).

20 April 2018: Waffled a lot on size and on needles. I used 9s for my Weekend Rainstorm, also in Rios, and ended up with 4 st/in on that one. I got gauge on the twins’ sweaters in Rios on 8s, but I do like the fabric of my Weekender, so it was a difficult choice. Ultimately, since this is a longer sweater, I was concerned that a larger gauge would stretch out more. In addition, this allows me to do the XL throughout (instead of L on top and then additional hip increases to get bottom to XL) and make it a bit oversized without being crazy. I am hoping this needle and size combination will get me to a sweet spot between L and XL.

A note on the name:
I purchased a Tea Collection shirt for my daughter last autumn, and the color of this yarn reminds me a lot of that shirt. It has a Scottish “faerie dragon” on it. I love it, but unfortunately, my daughter almost never wore/wears it. It seems that some other little girls at daycare told her she’s not allowed to play princess with them if she’s not wearing a dress. As a result, we might as well give all her shirts and pants away, because she now will not so much as look at them (regardless of how many talks we’ve had about whether that’s how friends act or whether someone should have to look a certain way to be included). I can’t believe this kind of horrible social pressure starts at 4.5 years old.