Another lovely, versatile pattern from Andrea (Lacuna).

I just LOVE this colour, although of course my last skein, that I didn’t think I would need, turned out to be quite blue, so 1 sleeve cuff and the smaller button band are bluer than the rest. That’s hand-dyed yarn for you!

Gauge: 18.5 stitches and 26 rows = 4 inches in Stockinette

Bullet shell toggles ordered from here

Cast on Jan. 27, 2013.
- alternating skeins.

Start bust darts on Row 27.

Bust dart calculation: 6 inches difference shoulder to under-bust front and back, so need to add 4 inches of depth, allowing 2 inches for ease (according to Ysolda Teague’s Little Red in the City book). However, high bust measurement is 43.5, so I maybe should have been knitting the size 44, not the 46. I will take that into account and adjust by adding 3 inches of depth via horizontal darts. That’s 20 short rows - 10 turns.

With 43 stitches for the front to first underarm marker, start first short row (the shortest) at 21 stitches from the front - then 1 stitch between each w&t - should end up at 4 stitches from first underarm marker. German short rows. It worked! Slipped and wrapped on 21, 23, 25, etc. to 39.

Mods:

• bust darts
• did 5 waist decreases earlier than pattern
• did 7 waist increases
• made sleeves slightly smaller at the top, and shorter than pattern (still really long)

Body: ended up with 124 rows prior to ribbing, as per pattern for the body. It is over 20 inches - will probably block out to the 22 inches per schematic.

Sleeves - had 63 stitches, but wanted to do size 44 sleeves, so picked up 20, as per size 46, then decreased the gap stitch on each side at round 1. Got rid of the odd stitch, the did 17 decreases, which would have left me with 46 stitches - meaning 4 knit stitches at the underarm. Decreased 2 more on row 88, so that ribbing 2x2 on 44 stitches works out. 42 rows of ribbing - this is still a really long sleeve, even with not doing the last 10 rows of ribbing.
2nd sleeve - wanted to get rid of some fullness without having to re-knit sleeve 1, so picked up 18 stitches instead of 20, then decreased 2 and then 1 the first 2 rounds (down to 78 stitches) then did decrease row next row and every 5th to 44 stitches.

Yarn usage: Needed skein 8 for the ribbing of sleeve 2, and the outer (smaller) buttonband. Inner band took 165 yards.

tutorial 1

tutorial 2

tutorial 3