My blog post is here.

Update: This has been frogged as I don’t wear it that much. I’m going to reknit it into a cardigan.

Gauge: I went up a size to 5mm needles for the stocking stitch to get gauge, but when I tried to use 4.5mm for the ribbing, it was too loose and floppy so I went to 4mm for ribbing.

Customising the sizing on this was a doozy for me but a good learning experience!!
Notes dump!

Sizing
I did all my shaping customised which was a lot more increases and decreases than the pattern called for.
But basically I did 2nd size up in hips, decreasing to smallest size for bust and shoulders.

I added extra decreases for the waist.
I aimed for 0” ease in the ribbing on the hips.
I took it down to 1” ease in the waist
I aimed for roughly 0” ease in the bust.

I found one thing very important:
You must take the lace into consideration for gauge!
The pattern’s lace gauge is 6”. When I swatched mine it was 7.87 inches, nearly 2” wider. You can see this would not work out well to fit the way I desired.

So do swatch your lace. It is weird that the pattern considers a stretchy holey lace pattern to turn out tighter than the stocking stitch body. Maybe that’s why some people’s turned out unexpectedly big.

I calculated the length of the body by adding 2.5” past my high hip (hip bone) length as I feel that is a flattering length to sit. That’s effectively adding a bit more than an inch to the pattern’s design.

In order to incorporate my waist decreases, I made the hem ribbing shorter, taking it from 5.5” long to 4”. Another reason for doing it is because other pear shaped ladies have said they felt the ribbing there wasn’t flattering to them, adding bulk.

Lace
To be fancy, I got the lace to end on a “leaf” at the neckline just like the model garment. I did this by calculating how many rows I would knit to get there, and counting the lace chart back so I knew where to start!

Sleeves
I also lengthened the arms as my arms are quite long. Plus you can’t go wrong with lovely cozy warm sleeves!
Since my row gauge was too long, I omitted 2 rows, only working 1 plain row in the middle of the sleeve cap, instead of 3 plain rows.

My first sewn-in set-in sleeves! I used this helpful tutorial: Set-in sleeves on Youtube

Shoulders
I used short rows and a 3 needle bind of to shape the shoulder bind off, a tip I picked up in Carol Feller’s free Craftsy course on short rows. I found it very tricky to figure out though because her instructions were a bit vague, lol. I eventually figured it out.
I’d be happy to share my instructions with anyone.

Picking up sts for neckline
It was hard getting the number of stitches they recommended because I felt like I had to pick up so few! I did 1 st for every stitch on the flat sections (on the back), so my curved sections had to have quite sparse spacing. I think near the “stair steps” of the neckline decreases, particularly on the back, I should have picked up some extras and decreased them on the first row. That might get a better result for next time. That way I’ll put less strain and gappy-ness in those areas in the pick up row, but still have nice firm ribbing.

Oh shoot! I just realised, that my lace gauge being wider than the pattern’s was probably why I felt like I needed to pick up more in the front. Next time maybe I’ll figure that out. As it is, it’s fine, just a very firm ribbing…
Ah HAH, I also just realised that my row gauge was longer too, therefore my regular stocking stitch parts should have had more sts picked up for them too, as the ratio of sts to rows was higher.
(the pattern’s was .64 and mine was .73. Eureka, I feel smart now!)

I was just able to use a 40cm circular needle for the neckline ribbing but it was a wee bit awkward.

Yardage:
I had a wee bit leftover which was a relief! But not much, so I would say the yarn requirements for this pattern are about right :)