8/25/13: Ta-da! It feels so good to finish this sweater, and it turned out just beautiful. I used EXACTLY 1400 yards (7 skeins) of yarn, size small. The only excess bits are the trimmings from the woven in ends. I got nervous and purchased an 8th skein as backup midway through, since this yarns was hand dyed in a small batch not to be repeated. Didn’t need it though.

A few notes: I ended the decreases of the shoulders on row 15 of the Celtic Flourish chart, which was after the 8 increases and before they are decreased again in row 23. This threw off the stitch counts for everything that followed, and caused a lot of head scratching. I wish I had just written in the extra 8 stitches on the pattern every time a stitch count was given for the yoke. I also ended up with 8 stitches too many when I started the neck, and ended up “forcing” the 8 stitch decrease in the first round of the neck, in the first round of ribbing. I don’t think it looks bad though.

I really debated whether to follow the rolled neck, and in the end decided to do a 2x2 rib with a tubular bind off. I looked up a lot of online tutorials for a 2x2 tubular bind off, and in the end, the most clear description was from Stitch ‘n Bitch Superstar Knitting. I LOVE how this sweater turned out, and after blocking and a 10-minute “snug up” in the dryer, fits DH just perfectly. I added 1 1/2” to the sleeve length for his monkey arms. Just gorgeous.

7/15/13: I’ve got the sleeves joined to the body, and the decreases completed. My stitch count wasn’t working out as expected, and I finally figured out it’s because I was in the middle section of the Celtic Flourish, so I had an extra 16 stitches on my needles. Once I figured that out, everything counted up correctly.

I’m now ready to start the yoke. However, I’m SO confused about the instructions “Work back and
forth over sleeve sts plus 1 marked st at each edge of sleeve.” Wha?! What is “work back and forth?” Is this a short row? I’ve been knitting in the round up to this point. I thought it would say something like “proceeding in flat stitching, reverse knits and purls of charts when knitting on reverse” or something like that…now I need to go read everyone’s comments and see if anyone else got stuck here.

(I realized this was a general instruction about how to build the yoke. Once I read to the next line, “Next row: (RS) P3…” it all seemed obvious.) The pattern creator Purly was very helpful here.

5/22/13: Little to report so far, except that this sweater is a yarn HOG. I bought the yarn at a fiber festival, and the quantity is quite limited. Had to call the supplier and ask her to send me another skein, and I’m still not convinced I have enough to finish. I just hope I can finish the sweater while the supplier still has this colorway in stock!

I’m knitting the sleeves together in magic loop. It’s the first time I’ve used magic loop, so it was a very slow start; maybe cabled sleeves that use three different charts was an ambitious start to magic looping? I’ve got the rhythm now though. It’s just taking forever. I think I’ll still be knitting the sleeves when the weather turns cool again.