I’m a sucker for Anthro-inspired patterns, yes I am. Also, anything with bishop sleeves immediately catches my attention. So here we go with sweater #4!

12/10 - Did bottom 3 inches of ribbing in 4.5mm needles and am now going down to 4mm for the next 4 inches. The pattern is saying to do only 11.5 inches for the body overall, but that seems short to me so I’m going for 13 or 14 inches in all.

12/11 - Am 7 inches in and now switching to 3.5mm to go until the bust. Don’t really see the shaping, but am trusting that it will have an effect once this is done.

12/14 - 14 inches of ribbed bodiy in total. Switched to 5.5mms and started the bust in stockinette last night.

12/27 - I actually had finished the entire body but ended up frogging the whole thing because I didn’t like the fit. The torso ended up being bigger than I liked and the ribbing hardly needed to stretch at all. Also, the collar ended up pulling up because I cast on too few stitches, I guess? Will try making it in the largest size next time to compensate. Gonna go down another size overall and try it again. Good news is that it was all ribbing so easy enough to do mindlessly in the background.

2/5 - New job and various other things have gotten in the way of my knitting time, but I’m nearly finished with version 1.1 of this sweater. It can’t really be 2.0 because I frogged the first try before it was finished… Anyway, I went down a size overall but used the instructions for the largest size collar, and that ended up taking care of a lot of the pulling issues I was getting around the bustline. Also used the largest sizing for the armholes, based on many recommendations. Have finished one sleeve, doing a long-sleeve ribbed mod, and am now starting the other. Anticipate putting this thing together by the end of the week. Yay for a new sweater!

2/7 - Finished and seamed sweater today. Took some pictures of it fresh off the needles, though I still have to toss it in the wash and give it a final blocking on the form before I’d wear it outside. From preliminary fitting, however, it’s pretty darn close to what I wanted. There was a bit more fudging here and there to get the sizing right than in the previous patterns I’ve worked with, but it ended up being worth it in the end.

NOTES: Definitely use the largest size for the armholes, no matter what size you’re making the rest of the sweater. I use the medium numbers for making the arms themselves and they set in perfectly fine. Also, take the largest numbers for the collar too if you want to avoid pulling on the bust. I’d probably have done a few more stitches if I were doing this again.