Made a couple swatches and determined a size 4 needle will allow me to knit the XS size and hopefully end up with the size S, which is what I want.

The yarn description says “undyed alpaca,” but that is no longer true. I dyed it! See notes on the yarn page.

Sept 10 - Made great progress this weekend. I’ve joined the neck sts and am working my way down the raglan yoke. So far so good. The yarn is a bit futzy because it’s so fuzzy, but I expected that.

Sept 16 - Knit up to separation for the sleeves. 7” from the back neckline in length. It should grow when blocking, so I’m pretty comfortable with it. Hibernating this project for now while I knit an interception for the DCS Pigskin Party :-D

Oct 8 - Slowly moving along. Twice I have accidentally knitted (or purled?) in the garter stitch section, creating a very subtle line in the fabric. Twice I have ripped back. Gaaarrrgghhhhh.

Oct 27 - Took another break for a couple weeks. We’re buying a condo and that’s kind of overwhelmed everything. Picked it up and counted the sts to see where I left off. Found I had 91 sts on the garter side, and 84 sts on the stockinette side. (They are supposed to be equal). I have absolutely no idea how I managed to do that. Clearly I was really spaced out when working my increase rows… or something.

I corrected the garter side so it’s 90 sts now, and ended up with 88 on the stockinette side when I got to the part for separating the pocket. And you know what? Good enough.

And so. I’m about to separate from the pocket. Holding the sweater from the needles it measures 9” from the underarm to the bottom. I really just meant for 8.5” but I’m not going to mess with it.

Nov 3 - Progress continues. After knitting two rounds of the pocket I remembered I wanted to knit the top in 2x2 rib so it won’t curl. I didn’t bother ripping back, just started the ribbing. It should be fine. I am struck by how lackadaisical I am with this project… hope it turns out OK!

Began the ribbing at the hem. Starting to feel pretty good about this sweater all of a sudden.

Nov 6 - If I wasn’t so busy thinning all of my stuff in preparation for the move, I’d be further along by now… oh well. Knitted a few rounds this morning. I think I’ll be able to bind off after one more row of ribbing, and then start the exciting adventure known as The Pocket.

I’m actually getting really excited about this sweater. After the pocket I plan to add the neck band, and block it before I begin the sleeves, measuring before and after. I just need to make sure I don’t make the sleeves too long.

I think I might try making garter stitch “patches” at the elbows. We’ll see.

Nov. 9 - Finished the ribbing and bound off purl-wise. Pattern says knit-wise, but the pocket started curling like a mad demon, so I tinked back and went purl-wise in an effort to mitigate the curl. It worked pretty well for that, and looks nice to boot.

Tried it on and spent the rest of the evening feeling incredibly grumpy because it’s so short.

Nov. 11 - Picked up neckline sts. I only found 89. (Pattern recommends 100). Whatevs, sweater. Whatevs. I thought it would look nicer with a few more rows of ribbing than called for in the pattern. Replicated the hem edge, with one knit row and a purl-wise bindoff. Included the Aracunia laceweight yarn in the last row and the bindoff to give the neckline a little more stability/prevent it from getting all stretched out over time.

Completed the finishing on the pocket and wove in all the ends there were to weave. Just the sleeves are left.

Nov. 18 - Didn’t touch this all week. Started a sleeve today. Finished 3” and about to start decreases. My math shows I can just follow the pattern as written and the sleeves should come out the correct length.

Feb. 5 Sleeve math was correct. However, there’s a couple of major problems that caused me to put this aside back in November (besides the fact that we moved and I was too busy to work on this). It’s really too short. I really need to rip out everything up to the top of the pocket and start the body again, adding two extra inches. I think this time I’ll just leave off the pocket. The thicker fabric on my hip isn’t all that flattering.

The other problem is my home dying experiment. It didn’t occur to me to alternate skeins, but now I know better. The finished sleeve is lighter than the body, and there’s a distinguishable line where the sleeve begins. I started Sleeve 2 with the same skein, thinking maybe just matching the oddness might make it not so odd… but now I’m thinking I might be happier if I rip both sleeves out and start them again with the darker brown yarn, alternating skeins so that the variation isn’t as obvious.

All of this means a lot of ripping and re-doing, and I just haven’t felt up to it. I’ll get back to it. Just not today.

April 14 Started working on the 2nd sleeve again yesterday. Realized that right around where the pocket started, I switched to another ball of yarn and it is definitely a little lighter, like the sleeves. So, when I ran out of yarn on the 2nd sleeve, I went ahead and ripped out the bottom up through the pocket. This yarn is really toothy and it took about an hour to get it all out! Gah! Will finish 2nd sleeve with lighter yarn, then will pick up slightly darker yarn to finish the body - but without the pocket.

It’s the yarn, not the sweater, that’s really testing me. But it will not beat me! LOL.

April 21 Finished the second sleeve yesterday. Color looks good. I think I must have bound off for ribbing on the last one instead of following the directions; they look different. I need to tink back a couple rows to fix it. No biggie though. I’m liking this sweater again. Now, to reknit those five inches on the body… oh boy!

July 8 I’ve picked this up and put this down on and off. Summer is never good for my knitting mojo. Ripped off the body to just above the pocket and found this was where my stitch count was way off. Ripped back more; still off, but at a point where I don’t think it matters. I’m not going to do any more increasing/decreasing; I think it’ll be fine just straight down. Anyway I’ll try it on as I go and see how much I still agree with that assessment. Incorporated new skein by knitting every other row with different skein for about an inch, just to make sure I would avoid any more color weirdness. So far so good, I think!

July 25 Finally finished this a couple days ago. I didn’t even feel any fanfare because I was coping with my mother’s visit at the time, hahah! She tries my patience much more than this sweater has. Finally got the sink nice and clean so I could soak it in Euclan and block it.

July 26 Tried it on. Fits well! It’s a little itchy (how is this possible? It’s alpaca…) but it’ll be warm and comfortable for winter. Whew.