25.05.2014:

Did my first swatches today. I tried my wool with double strands, first on a 6 mm, then on 7 mm needle. irst swatch came out with 21 stitches on 10 cm, the second attempt with 14 stitches. This means I would still have to adjust the stitch number, but in general, this variety looks best to me.

Continued swatch includes star pattern for definition review, looks fine as well.

26.05.2014:

Final measures and tools have been decided.

Size:

• XL as defined in pattern
• stitch count modified, as my yarn gives me 14 stitches on 10 cm

Yarn:

• Ice Yarns Angora Superfine, knitted with two strands, yardage depends on the result

Needle:

• KnitPro Symphonie 7 mm for knitting
• KnitPro Symphonie 8 mm for cast-off
• 7 mm DPN for sleeves

27.05.2014:

Real cast-on with 168 stitches, did the garter hem and the first row of the body. This part will probably proceed fast.

23.06.2014:

This is what I thought ^^

Now, the body part has been completed today, started off right away with the sleeves. ue to gauge differences, adjustments needed to be made:

• 50 stitches on the needles instead of 57 to start with
• 18 stitches decrease instead of 20
• decide for or against final increases after measuring the sleeve length after finishing the decreases

Main thing I noticed is that the gauge with my yarn is affected not only in width but also in height. In the body part, this was not significant, but it may affect the final length of the sleeves if I work strictly to the pattern. I assume the sleeves will come out slightly longer, which may be good, since I need longer sleeves in any case.

25.06.2014:

First sleeve completed. Modifications, due to gauge, were successful, the sleeve looks and fits well. Only new lesson learnt is that following the updated instructions for the XL pattern, even without adding extra length, my variety is already 57 cm long, which is 7 more than originally required. For my purpose, however, this is perfect, since normally, I would have used the “add extra length” option in order to reach this length myself. It just proves that yarn substitution is more complicated than originally anticipated.

28.06.14:

Second sleeve finished, disregarding some “kitten incidents”. No problems with the pattern alltogether so far. Ready to join sleeves and body and start with the yoke.

29.06.2014:

Joined, 2,5 cm of the yoke done as described in plain stockinette. Stitch count gave me 230 stitches, which is perfect to start from for the star pattern. However, I hope this does not come out problematic in general shaping. It is only 2 stitches less than the 16 stitches gauge, I am working a 14 stitches gauge.

02.07.2014:

Pattern completed, first decrease round completed.

Main problems identified:

• star pattern does not work for my stitch count despite hab=ving started with a perfect 4 plus 2 count.
• Sleeves ended up 57 cm despite following the rules, most likely due to yarn modification. In my particular case this is good, I would otherwise have used the “add extra length” option. Still, it discourages me from proposing yarn substitutions. In any other part of the pattern, this is of no importance though, since all other lengths are only cm / inch measures that can easily be adapted to.

03.07.2014:

Knitting part done, still need to graft, sew , block, wear and model :-)

Aaaaand finished! Since I am between sizes and I chose the larger one, the sweater has a somewhat lose fit, but I like it ^^ It is too dark today to make fotos, will follow.