US 7 Swatch:
Preblocked: 20st and 26.5-27R in 4”
Postblocked: 19st and 27R in 4”

4.75st and 6.75R per inch

• This sweater works up very quickly, esp if you’ve made a shawl collar sweater in the past.

• My gauge is slightly tighter than instructed but the fabric does open nicely and I wouldn’t want a fabric anymore open than the one I’m getting on the US7. Also, this yarn is super wash so I know it will grow to the dimensions of my choosing (within reason), which is why I’m not going to increase to a US 8. It does look pretty tiny when knitting it up though, esp before the collar is added.

• I only did one decrease on the sleeves (after 8R as instructed). I felt that they were as tight as they needed to be - esp as my gauge did tighten a bit in the sleeves (in the round). Usually that doesn’t happen but these sleeves are worked at a tiny diameter. That means I did the 2x2 ribbing on the cuffs at 28st not 24st. But they were worked in the smaller needle size so that is fine…

• Note that the final markers actually sit at the upper curve of the v-neck collar - in this size that’s about 20% of the way from the front sleeve raglans. Keep in mind that at this size, the cast on stitches (36st) form the back segment at 20st and then there are 8 st on either side of that which form the top of the raglan sleeves, the raglans and the fronts.

• Interestingly, when I cast on the shawl collar, I managed to pick up 46st for each front and 46 st for the collar (just by accident, and more or less following the “pick up 3 of every 4 stitches” instructions.

• I will do German short rows on the collar. No fan of W&T and shadow wrap / YO short rows work fine but nothing is more straight forward than the GSRs, in my opinion.

How I worked the German Short Rows for the 6-month size:

• Did the set up rows such that there were 10 stitches between the first GSR “wrap” and the marker on each side. That means that I worked the “wrap” on the 36th st past the first marker (on the RS) and then, on the WS, worked the “wrap” on the 25th st after turning. It’s key to have the same number of stitches between the marker and the short row on each side or the collar will be thicker on one side than on the other…

• Thereafter, I followed the instructions to do 10 more short rows as follows:

• 4 RS and 4 WS or 8 short rows turning after working the 3rd st past the original “wrap” and picking up the wraps on each row as I worked.

• 1RS and 1WS or 2 short rows turning after working the 4th stitch past the original “wrap” and picking up the wraps on each row as I worked.

• Finally, I worked one additional pair of short rows as per the 2 rows above (working 4 stitches instead of 3).

• Why did I do 2 extra pairs of short rows (4 rows total) and increase the distance between the short rows by one stitch in the last 2 pairs? I wanted more length in the shawl collar (wanted it to go further down the garter side fronts) than the pattern got me to. Were I to make this again, I’d work 4 st after each wrap instead of 3, before turning, because it would give more length in the shawl collar and slightly less depth. As it is, however, this works just fine.

• Still considering how I will work the buttonholes given that the buttons I intend to use are 0.5” in diameter. That’s a small buttonhole but I do like the buttonholes to be sturdy and “real” and those yarn over ones tend to be weak and look like afterthoughts. I’ll use 5 buttons.

• I used the buttonhole method described in this helpful post: https://www.ravelry.com/projects/tessrider/elwood-7