Another cute design by the super talented, Jennifer Wood. She cranks out the designs faster than I can knit them. Each one is a delight. I finished this in a week’s spare time.

Needles:

Size 3 US (neckband)
Size 4 US (Yoke, sleeves and entire first ball of yarn)
Size 5 US (2nd ball of yarn)
Size 5.5 US (Lower part of the body -My Addi 4 mm which is smaller than size 6 US)

I switched to the larger needles for most of the body because (I thought that) row gauge is more important in this area. However, matching row gauge caused my stitch gauge to increase too. This caused the width of the bottom to match the next larger size. Total width at the bottom of mine is about 46.75”. I would have preferred the 43.5” indicated for my size. So if I ever knit this again, I probably won’t go up a needle size for the body as I did on this one. If I use the smaller needle size for the entire garment, this means that I’ll have to increase the length of the lower border considerably if I want it to be 3” long.

What I did differently:

• The pattern has the cast-on at center front. Since the garment is completely reversible (same on both sides), I chose to call this the “center back”. So when the pattern says to “move the BOR to left front, on mine, that was the right front. I just prefer weaving in my cast-on tail in the back.

• I had to knit quite a few straight rounds of stockinette before separating sleeves from body. If you need to lengthen in this area, do so BEFORE the Triple Body Increase round. The latter needs to come AFTER because it forms the point of the upside down “V” that continues down the body. I knit straight until the yoke measured 7.5” inches from the cast-on edge. This was an extra 1.5” after completing the pattern directions for the yoke. I should have added an extra 1/2” so that I could wear this over a long sleeve top.

• The pattern is still in testing, so the body length issue may be resolved eventually. I had to add 31 extra rounds over what was called for in the original pattern. I just kept doing the Inc/Dec round every 4th round until the garment was 10 inches long (from underarm). Then I started the lower border. The total length (12.5”) is 2” less than the length indicated in the pattern (as a suggestion). If knitting this again for myself, I’d make it an inch or so longer.

• Before you start knitting the bottom border, place some markers around starting from the center front. This is the most noticeable area, so I wanted the lace design to be centered there. My size 37.5” requires 6.5 repeats of the chart. Therefore, if you center the border design in the front, it will not be centered in the back. Trust me that nobody will notice but you. In order to have the border chart centered in front, I had to move my BOR marker 5 sts forward before I started knitting the border. It will probably be a different amount on your size.

• With Jennifer’s permission, I changed the sleeve design as follows:

Picked up 16 stitches under each arm and then the 58 held sts = 74 sts each sleeve to start.

I did one round of knitting (pick-up round) before starting the chart.

Before you start knitting the border chart, place some markers around the opening to make sure that the 17-st repeat ends or is centered at the top of the shoulder. I centered the 34-st chart at the top of my shoulders.

I decreased 2 sts on rounds 1, 3 and 7 of the chart which brought my stitch count to the required 68 sts (4 x 17 sts which is the chart repeat). If you’re knitting a much larger size, you could have 5 repeats (85 sts) or even more repeats. If you need some “in between” number of sts, I suggest that you alter the chart by adding a few “YO, K1s” and “K2tog / SSKs”. There are quite a few ways you could make this work for the other sizes, including “fudging” under the arms where nobody is going to be looking. I’m planning on wearing this pullover over another long sleeve pullover, because worsted weight, short sleeve sweaters don’t make sense for our climate which is pretty warm 9 months out of the year. So I didn’t want my arm opening to be too small (hence more sts picked up under the arm). Note that my sleeve borders are slightly narrower (2.125”) than the bottom border (2.5”) because I used 1.5 size larger needle for the latter.

If I ever knit this again, I’ll probably use a DK weight yarn (or even sport weight) and one size larger needle. I think it would be more attractive with a drapier fabric. Knitting with the Jeans yarn and size 4 and 5 needles results in quite a dense, stiff fabric. (Normal size needle for this yarn is 7 or 8 US.) It’s still a very cute pullover, but I think this “baby doll” style looks even cuter with more draping.

I always have problems with the lifted increases puckering. I sort of like the gathers in a way, but if you don’t want them, do what Jolanda does:

“What I did is m1 and knit one and then yarn over and knit the y.o. thru the back loop on the next round.
That gave me just enough yarn to stop the pulling. Worked well for me.”

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