7th January 2016

so far, so good. I was expecting the yarn to be a little more ‘sticky’ and difficult to undo, but it’s been great. Very soft and squishy, and the colour is beautiful.

16th February 2016

Cast on for the front first, made it slightly longer (70cm) before switching back to size 5mm needles and double yarn for the decrease row.

First row after decrease (WS) is plain knit purl rib.

Next begin simple lace:

Row 1 (RS): edge stitch, * p1, s1, k2, psso, p2 , s1, k2, psso, p1 * edge stitch (purl)
Row 2 and all WS rows: knit the knits and purl the purls
Row 3: edge stitch * p1, k1, yo, k1, p2, k1, yo, k1, p1 * edge stitch (purl)
Row 4: k k’s, p p’s

Repeat rows 1-4 until desired length

22nd February 2016

front is finished.
Notes on construction of shoulders with lace pattern -- I was careful to make them identical by retaining the lace pattern regardless of what was going on with decreases for the shoulders. Where the stitch to be decreased was part of a pattern decrease, I (s1, k1, k2tog, psso) - works for both right and left side leaning stitches.

22nd March 2016

I counted very carefully when I cast on for the back, but discovered that I was short by about 5 stitches when I got to the decrease row. Not sure how, oops! I did some fiddling with the decreases to end up with the correct number for the patterned section though so no dramas.

Same basic lace pattern as the front.

28th March 2016

I started the sleeves yesterday - knitted flat two at a time, in the basic lace pattern that the bodice is knitted in.

I am not following the increases in the original pattern, instead my increases are something like:

the third row of every lace pattern repeat (this is the yarn over row) for 2 repeats, then every 2nd repeat until the correct number of stitches are on the needles as per the original pattern.

Once there are enough stitches, the increases are added into the pattern.

All of this aside, I’m not sure I’m happy with them so far -- the sleeves seem very tight even with the decreases and allowing for negative ease resulting from the ribbing. I feel like I should have cast on for the larger size rather than the smaller.

3rd March 2016

It’s finished!!

Arms finished last night, and then did all the seaming today.

Things I noticed -
for some reason the front bottom hem curls up but the back one doesn’t, so it looks a little longer at the back. I figure adding the picot edging would help with that, but I was too excited to wear it!

As I was knitting them up, I was really worried the sleeves would be too tight, but they’re perfect! Negative ease for the win!

A pattern with a lot of volume to it in terms of plain knitting, but lovely and easy to follow with really nice results.