Note on yardage: My gauge was spot on for this pattern. When I bought yarn, I knew I was going to take off roughly 5 inches in length. Even factoring that in, I made sure to overestimate (like always) and purchased 1400 yards of MadTosh. For the 42.5” size, the pattern states that you will need 1446 yards. I figured that since I would be eliminating 5 inches off the length of the body, 1400 yards would give me more than enough wiggle room and I wouldn’t run out of yarn. Unfortunately, I still ran out of yarn! Based on my experience with this pattern, it seems like the yardage requirement might be quite understated in the amount of yarn you need. BUY MORE THAN THE PATTERN CALLS FOR! If you’re knitting it to the length the pattern calls for, I imagine you’ll need quite a bit more then 1446 yards since I ran out with removing FIVE INCHES in length.

9/11/11: Used about half of the skein to finish the last sleeve, plus whatever yardage needed to seam it. Noting it down as 7.5 skeins used.

Swatched and got gauge on US 8’s. I didn’t block the swatch aggressively (no pinning it), just laid it flat and let it dry. The swatch naturally stretched a little after drying, so I measured the gauge that way with only a little stretch to it. Will be making the length of the body a bit shorter then the pattern calls for.

8/21/11: Finished the back piece. Knit to 16.5” before starting the armholes since I want this to be shorter. Started the right front.

8/29/11: Finished the right front and started the left front.

9/1/11: Finished the left front! On to the sleeves.

A note on the sleeves. Read this section carefully as it isn’t very clear what you should be doing here. No really, pay attention to the sleeve section so you don’t have to rip out! It says “AT THE SAME TIME” to work the increases for the sleeves as you’re working the cable repeats. That means the increases start the very first row of the very first cable chart. The part where it says “repeat increase row every ___th row, ____ times” it should be “___ times MORE” because the first row isn’t being counted here. Example, for the 42.5” size, you are working a total of 18 increase rows, not the “17 times” the pattern states. To keep track of what rows have increases, I wrote down all the rows and noted which rows have an increase.

Another note on the sleeves. The pattern doesn’t state how to incorporate the stitches you’re adding in, so I chose to do it in pattern always keeping the first and last stitch a purl on the right side row.

9/5/11: Well… I finished my first sleeve (left sleeve) and weighed it. Then I measured my remaining yarn. No way I’ll have enough to finish the second sleeve, let alone seam the whole sweater together. Crap. Ordered another skein of yarn from TLE. Hoping it arrives quickly and it isn’t horribly lighter or darker then the rest of my skeins. sigh

9/11/11: Yarn arrived on 9/8. A bit darker and more of a solid then the rest of the yarn. I used about half of the skein to finish the second sleeve. Finished knitting Saturday morning (only because I realized I screwed up the first sleeve and didn’t bind off enough before knitting the shoulder part and had to rip back). Managed to get the pieces blocking before we headed out of town for the weekend. Still not quite dry enough to start seaming. Hoping it’ll be done drying by Monday or Tuesday to give me enough time to seam it and take pictures for this last part of Camp Loopy (deadline is 9/15).

9/15/11: Finished! Started seaming on Monday, 9/12. Completed seaming on 9/15. Sleeves ended up too long after seaming, which I had been concerned about since I started them. Turns out I have short arms. After seaming, I decided to rip out on cable repeat at the cuff of the sleeves. This made them just the right length for me. Managed to do that and still make the Camp Loopy deadline!

9/16/11: Photographed on 9/15 and uploaded today. Not super happy with the pics and will likely take more at a later date. Overall happy with the sweater, but still a little bigger then I hoped it would be, likely because of the stretch of the ribbing. It makes for a great lazy day sweater to throw on or to wear around the house - it’s super cozy!

9/19/11: Not entirely happy with the sleeve surgery I did. Will be pulling out the cast on and adding a few rows of ribbing then using a different bind off.

Notes on sleeve - take out bind off and 1 row. cast on 56 sts, worked to match ribbing (ws - start/end with k1, p1), first ws row inc 2, work ws, work rs, work ws, increase 2, work ws row then graft.

9/23/11: Fixed sleeves! Worked a small bit of pattern, then grafted to sleeve. Really please with the results. It added just enough length. The sleeve edge now matches the bottom. I’m totally in love with this sweater! Super cozy to wear.