I’ve wanted to knit this pattern for a while because of the clean lines and the nice shoulder line. When I was gifted a second skein of this yarn I new it was perfect for this sweater. Its unfortunate that the pattern is so hard to decipher. It takes a wonderful, simple, clean design and turns it into a test of patience.

Summary

• Used Judy’s Magic cast on instead of a provisional cast on.

• ’pfb’ stitch definition is missing in abbreviations.

• Since I’m using a variegated yarn, I need to alternate between skeins. I am alternating the skeins after the button band stitches. this way the carry is hidden inside the sweater.

• each 4 row repeat of the sleeve increase section results in the following increases: 1 front increase on each side, 4 sleeve increases on each side and 0 back increases.

• Stitch count for the sleeve increase section do not add up. The previous section ends with 20 front stitches for the medium size. At the end of the sleeve increase section I should have 28 front stitches. This means that I need to repeat the 4 rows 8 times. There are 4 sleeve increases for each 4 row repeat. The medium starts with 12 sleeve stitches plus 2 increases in the setup section or 14 stitches. At the end of the sleeve increase section I should have 14 + (4 * 8) or 46 sleeve stitches. The pattern says that I should have 48 sleeve stitches - it doesn’t add up!!!

  There is a note that indicates that I might have more or less stitches for my front stitch count, depending on row gauge. Row gauge is not mentioned and has nothing to do with stitch count as far as I can tell. I could choose to go 1/2 more repeat (rows 1&2) to get my sleeve stitch count correct and then I would have 29 front stitches - 1 more than I’m supposed to have. Maybe this is what is meant by the note. If I do this, then there will be a slight break the line of the front v-neck, so i’m going to do 1 full additional repeat of 4 rows to maintain the front v-neck line. Its better for the sweater to be a bit large than a bit small.

• Each 4 row repeat of the body increase section results in the following increases: 1 front increase on each side, 2 front body increases on each side, 4 sleeve increases on each side and 4 back increases.

• The Body/sleeve/front increase final counts also don’t work for full repeats of 4 rows. You need to do a 1/2 repeat for the increased stitch counts to work. Each 4 row repeat results in 3 front increases. If I start with 28 front stitches and end with 36, I need to add 8 stitches or 2 1/2 repeats. If i look at the sleeve count and start with 48 stitches and end with 58 stitches, I need to increase 10 stitches. each repeat of 4 rows results in 4 stitches increases or 2 1/2 repeats. The back needs to increase 10 stitches or 2 1/2 repeats. Again, the same problem occurs in that the front increases occur once every 4 rows, so I don’t want to stop in the middle. (Note: a solution could be to just continue doing the front shaping every 4 rows independent of what is happening in the front/sleeve/body.

  I planned on doing 3 full repeats for the same reasons as the previous section since I need to get my arm size up. However, the next section stops the arm increases and the arm was no where near fitting me. I’m repeating these 4 rows until I get about 13” in the arm stitches. (Ended up with 6 repeats in this section. My final stitch counts for this section are: front-47; sleeve-75; back-100).

• Since I need about 9 1/2” from the end of the front shaping to the bottom of the sweater, I’m going to place 5 buttons instead of 4. I will place the bottom button 1/2” from the bottom. This means I need a spacing of 2.25” between buttons.

• I am doing 3” of waist shaping starting at 3” below arm hole.

• I’m not the sure why the cuff slipped rib pattern slips the knit stitch knitwise and then on the next row knits it through the back loop. This adds extra confusion. You should be able to slip the stitch purlwise and then knit the stitch in the normal manner on the next row.

Pattern Notes

This pattern can be difficult to decipher. Here are some hints:

• The button band is really an Icord. It is created using double knitting techniques.

• The first body section uses a ‘pfb’. The stitch is not defined in the abbreviations. I used a Purl front and back.

• The gray table rows are count rows. They contain counts for the number of stitches / repeats in the follow-on directions, counts to be substituted into the directions and total counts for the completion of a section. The rows with completed section counts have the counts in bold.

• The white background table rows are direction rows. These are the large section directions for the pattern repeat.

• The designer uses count substitution and these are not obvious. If you see a direction such as “k to sleeve stitches” go up to the count rows. The appropriate substitution is probably there, except for the “separating sleeves” section -- the substitution count is below. Sometimes these are italicized, sometimes they are not.

• I found in one section of size M, the counts were incorrect and could not be achieved with the given directions. I don’t know if this is a problem with other sections. Since arm circumference is important to me, that’s what I prioritized and went from there.

• The pattern has slim arms. For those of us with larger upper arms, modifications are required.

• Some sections can achieve correct counts by repeating an extra 1/2 repeat. The problem with this is that there is 1 front shaping increase per 4 rows. If you do a 1/2 repeat and then start with the next section you will have 2 front shaping increases in 4 rows. Depending on your needs, there are a couple of solutions to this problem:

  1. Complete the full repeat anyway. This is what i did because I needed more arm increases.
  2. Divorce the front shaping increases from the pattern rows. What I mean by this, is that no matter how many rows of the repeat you knit, always do the front shaping increase every 4 rows.
  3. Of course you can just have 2 increases in the 4 rows if that doesn’t bother you.

• Several sections have notes indicating you may have more or less rows depending on gauge. The sections that contain these notes do not rely on length measurement, but rather, they rely on stitch counts. I just ignored them since they weren’t relevant to the section.

• There is an issue with the sleeve separation section associated with the front shaping. If you complete the 4 row repeat of the previous section, then the sleeve separation row needs to have the front shaping increases. This means that the body is starting effectively with “row 2”.

• The back sizing table only has measurements in CM. You will have to convert if you need inches.

• the last line of the buttonhole section says that the 4th buttonhole is worked 2cm after starting the cuff. A little confusing since we don’t call the ribbed border a cuff.

• Button placement is a bit odd. First, you distribute 3 buttons from end of front shaping to bottom of sweater, before starting the ribbed band. Depending on the length of this section you will have huge gaps between buttons. In my case I need 9”. This would result in 3” between buttons.

  The last button is placed in the ribbed band at the bottom. If you do this you will have 2 buttons right next to each other. This can be seen on FO pictures in the pattern.

• The waist shaping section says that you need an even number of stitches between the 2 “side seams”. This may be true for the counts as specified in the pattern, but I had a different count and it wasn’t true form me. To test this, count the number of back stitches and subtract (220). The remaining number should be a multiple of 3 + 1 stitch.

Journal

2013-06-22: Cast on 12 using Judy’s Magic Cast On. Put 6 stitches on a holder. Knit 84 double knit rows on a US 4 (3.5mm).

2013-06-25: Pickup stitches along neck band. I did my usual PU & knit tbl. JMCO stitches line up well (on the front) when knitting the final “provisional” stitches. Changed to US 5 (3.75mm) for the setup row. Completed 5, 4 row shoulder repeats. Shoulder increase section complete.

2013-06-26: Completed 7 repeats of sleeve increase section. Sleeve stitch numbers are not working out on the medium (based on pattern counts), so I’m going to do 9 repeats instead of the required 7. I’ll have 1 extra front stitch, but my sleeve count will be correct.

2013-06-26: Complete 9th repeat of sleeve increase section. I decided not to stop in the middle of a repeat or to adjust my counts in the follow-on section. I now have 29 front stitches, 50 sleeve stitches and 76 back stitches.

2013-06-27: Complete 1 repeat of body/front/sleeve increase section.

2013-06-29: Completed 6th repeat of body/front/sleeve increase section. I did more repeats so I could get a sleeve size that fits. I will make up for it in the body/front increase section (no sleeve increases in this section). I now have 47 front stitches, 74 sleeve stitches and 100 back stitches.

Completed body/front increase section. I only needed on repeat of the 4 rows in this section since i did so many increases in the previous section. My stitch counts are now closer to the large size: 50 front stitches, 74 sleeve stitches, 104 back stitches.

Completed sleeve separation. Completed front shaping.

2013-07-10: 2 button holes complete; completed body section before waist shaping. I have 111 back stitches between the “side seam” stitches. I will need to decrease 1 at the start.

Well, an even number of stitches wasn’t required in my case. I decreased 1, knit 19 for a total of 20 stitches and then started the P1 K2 rib. I ended up with 1 extra stitch. I have to tink back & remove the decrease. I will start with 21 stitches, followed by the ribbing, and end with 21 stitches. This is an issue with my stitch count and not the pattern.

2013-07-11: Completed waist shaping & third button hole.

2013-07-12: Complete 4th button hole.

2013-07-13: Complete stockinette body (1 row after button hole) and 5th buttonhole. Complete 5 repeats of slip-rib pattern for bottom band of sweater. Begin bind off using Jenny’s Stretchy Bind off. I don’t like the look of the bind off when binding off from the RS. Rip bind off back and do an extra slip-rib row so I can bind off from the WS. I don’t like the extra row, so I’m ripping that out. I guess I will do a traditional bind off in pattern.

2013-07-15: Complete right sleeve to elbow.

2013-07-20: Start left sleeve.

2013-07-29: Complete left sleeve to elbow. Complete both sleeves to 3/4 length. I’m going for full length.

2013-07-30: Complete right sleeve & bind off using JSSBO. Complete left sleeve to just before slip rib cuff. Thread lifeline and block. The left sleeve has an odd color change which I plan on ripping out. I’ll use extra yarn from a swatch and inter mix the two once I finish blocking. I want to determine that the arm lengths are correct before ripping out.

2013-07-31: Finished initial block. Sleeve length of completed sleeve is fine. Ripped back left sleeve and started alternating between swatch yarn and remainder of second skein to get better blending of dye lots.

2013-08-04: Completed left sleeve with the remaining skein 2 yarn and the yarn from skein 1 that was used for a swatch. I’m re-blocking the sleeve now.

Swatching

2012-09-25: Started swatching with the specified needle size (US 2.5/3.00mm) and ended up with 28 stitches in 4”. The fabric was tight and probably wouldn’t block out. I’ve moved up to a US 4 needle and it looks like 24 stitches per 4”. I’ll finish and block this swatch.

2012-09-25: Second swatch on US 5 completed. My pre-block gauge is 22 1/2 stitches in 4 inches. My row gauge is 31 1/2 rows per 4 inches.

2012-09-27: After blocking my swatches I’ve decided to go with US 5 needles for this project.

First Time

• Double knitting - The starting i cord is created via double knitting.

• Contiguous sleeve construction.

Next Time

• Use M1R instead of M1L when appropriate.

• Start with a Large. I need bigger sleeves and had to do a lot of additional increase rows from the medium. I can create a larger “shoulder cap” by setting aside more sleeve stitches when the sleeve is first started.

• Can I hide my alternating ball strand in the icord?

• Use twisted stitches for the “side seam”. My purls are wider than my knits. I think if tightened up with twisted stitches, this would make a better faux side seam.

• Use a real icord instead of the double knit icord. The results of this method of doing an icord results in a slipped stitch icord. This causes some puckering (which mostly seems to block out). This border also curls under and maybe a straight icord wouldn’t.

• Start the waist shaping about 1” higher.

My Rating

This is a lovely design and an easy knit. Unfortunately, the pattern is written in a manner that makes it hard to figure it out. Hence, I can’t give the pattern the rating the design deserves.