This is my very first sweater and it turned out nicely, jippie!

• Needle size 4,5mm was used for all the ribbings, needle size 5,0 mm was used for the rest.

• I used 9 balls of yarn and have 115g (= 43 + 72g) left.

• I worked the Flax pattern in size L, with long sleeves. I did not work the garter stitch section in the sleeves, I knitted an all-over stockinette instead. I am very happy that I have found a free pattern with helpful instructions for my first sweater. ;)

• I added waist shaping as described on the blog of Amy Herzog, but did not need to knit short rows.

• After separating the body from the sleeves, I casted on 24 stitches instead of 8 stitches for the sleeves because 8 stitches seemed to be too small.

• It seems that “knit until part is x cm long”means “x cm long after washing”, so I knitted the sweater bigger because my yarn shrinks in the washing mashine.

• I finished the body on July 30, 2017 / day 25. It has 226 stitches at the bottom.

• I knitted both sleeves in parallel. That means I knitted some rows on one sleeve and on the next day I worked on the other sleeve.

• I used a stretchy bind-off as shown in these (German) youtube videos: one and two for the body.

• I decided to add a standing collar to keep my neck warm. I used the sewn bind off to get a stretchy collar.

• I worked on the sweater on 54 days and approx. 317 hours. This would be knitting 17 days with working 8 hours a day and 5 days per week.

• sweater weight: approx 785g. after improvements: 770g

Improvements done 5/2018

• I made the sleeves shorter: unraveled approx. 30 rows and made new ribbing with 19 rows. Used the sewn bind off as in the original version of the sleeves.
• I re-made the ribbing at the bottom of the body beause it was too lose. Unraveled approx. 27 rows and knitted a new 5 with 23 rows.Used elastic bind off as in the original version. sewn bind off looks less good.

Measurements as reference for future projects

• circumference of collar: 90 stitches / 44cm
• length of collar ribbing: 28 rows / 7cm
• circumference at cuffs of sleeves: 46 stitches / 20cm
• length of sleeve including ribbing of sleeve and without ribbing at collar: 80cm
• total body length, including collar and ribbing at bottom: 70cm
• stitches at bottom of body: 224

Things I would do differently on my next sweater:

• Knit the yoke less high / long. Separate body from sleeves right after the raglan decreases. (Here it was done later and the yoke is too long.)

• Do the waist shaping at the side seams. (Here it was done at the front side.)

• Add less stitches for the sleeves. (Here I added 24 stitches.)

• Knit the sleeves as rectangles, sew them into a tube later and sew them to the body. (Here the annoying magic loop method was used to knit in the round and a top down raglan approach was used.)

• If applicable: place the sleeve decreases so that they are inside (Here they run to the outside on the right sleeve.)

• Buy a lot of yarn. (Here I bought 6 and had to order 3 more when the yarn was already out of stock in most shops.)

• Try to buy a yarn that gets bigger in the wash. (This yarn gets smaller.)