After a few weeks of wear - I LOVE THIS! Wearing it heaps, yarn is great - snuggly, not itchy and doesn’t pill much. Lovely to wear, flattering and comfy.

I’ve now ripped back the cowl and reknit with 6 less sts and a smaller needle. Much better - staying on my shoulders and the arms are the right length!

I’m so glad I bit the bullet and frogged and reknit this, it fits really well when knit at gauge! As you can see the waist shaping is spot on - fitted but not clingy.

I must have gone loose again on the cowl-neck as it came out too wide, and as a result slipped off my shoulders.

Really struggled to get and keep gauge on this, it kept growing, I had to frog and re-knit the body as the first attempt was enormous. This yarn is horrible stuff to frog back too.

I used pretty much every bit of the 7 balls (I did add some length), so think about buying an extra ball.

A few things in the pattern confused me:

Am I really supposed to work the last waist decrease and then the first increase on the very next round? Seems a little strange, not least because I get a hole trying to m1 above a k2tog. Surely this is wrong? Anyway I did 4 rounds between them.

Is something wrong with the instructions for the neck button holes too? k69 doesn’t get me close enough to the fold to have the button holes centred with 7sts - should I knit further, or make the button holes further apart?

Bottom was curling up, so I ripped that back too and added 2 extra rows of garter sts and BO firmly.

All in all not my favourite pattern, but I’m really happy I stuck with it because I really like the finished sweater. Do make the effort to make gauge though - in my world 6sts to the inch with dk is a big ask.

IntSweMoDo2010 #4