This is a fun project. There’s a lot of relaxing stockinette, but the construction details keep things interesting. The body is knit in the round from the bottom up, with slipped stitches forming faux seams. The sleeves are knit from cuff to cuff, forming the yoke, which is attached to the body along with way.

I didn’t like the look of the knitted cast-on, so I instead did a long-tail cast on over a larger needle. Because I used a gauge of 20 sts/4”, I followed the directions for the next larger size up in order to obtain the size I wanted. The beginning of the round forms the center back, but I wish I had made the beginning of the round one of the sides instead. The waist shaping occurs on either side of the center “seams,” which means that the shaping looks kind of jagged along the back since that’s where the beginning of the round joins the end of the round.

To join the sleeve to the body, you work some of the sleeve stitches with body stitches. I was confused about how to pick up the required BO stitches along the body--whether to insert the needle into the stitch itself or under both legs of the stitch. I tried both but was not satisfied with the results either way. It made the join look too open. Instead, I ended up inserting my needle into the stitch below the BO stitch, setting the right leg of the stitch onto the left needle so that I could work it. If I had known beforehand that I would do that, I would have done just a simple loose bind off for the body.

When joining the sleeve, I accidentally put it on the right side of the body instead of the left. This actually worked out better, though, because the joins created on the WS rows turned out much neater than the ones created on RS rows. This way, the neater join shows on the front of the garment rather than on the back. I used crossed stitches at the armholes and neck openings to avoid huge gaps.

I love the boatneck but made mine less wide--only about 10”. The directions have you slip the neck edge stitch for the front yoke but forget to mention it for the back yoke; I did both. I thought the resulting edge was fine and a good match for the casual look of the sweater, so I didn’t add the neckline trim.