January 5, 2019

I’m about half-way through the front panel. This is a note to myself to check the project notes for MaDashper’s sweater (in my favorites) for how to do the sleeves once I get to that point.

January 12, 2019

I’m ready to start the increases on the second panel which I’ve decided will be the front since I noticed a mistake on the ribbing on the first panel. When you do the ribbing (and the increases), put a stitch marker on one side as a visual clue of which row you’re on in the alternating pattern. I was silly and didn’t do this (and I wish pattern writters suggested things like this) and I missed going into the back loop on one of my ribbing rows so it has just a vertical line and not both loops pushed to the front like it should be. Probably nobody else but me would notice this, but the front and the back are identical so I’ll just put it to the back.

Also, it’s taking me the full cake to do each panel so I’ll only have one cake for both the sleeves. This should be plenty of yarn but it means I won’t be able to match the stripes like I did on the front and back. But that’s fine -- to my family, I’ve been calling this the Ugly Sweater and the Homebody name is appropriate since I’ll just wear it around the house.

January 13, 2019

Did I say the front and the back are identical? I should have said, “The front and the back are supposed to be identical.”

I finished the front panel last night and it is smaller than the back, probably because I switched to my Clover hook (of the same size) accidentally. Blocking will hopefully sort it out.

I clipped the two parts together and tried it on and it is definitely “meh”. There’s a color change right in the middle that is super awkward and it is a most unflattering style on me. I’m not sure I’ll even wear it around the house but it is good practice I suppose.

January 18, 2019

I used a slip stitch join this morning and started on the sleeves. I did 25 stitches on each side of the shoulder (5 more than the pattern).

I’m picked up the 50 stitches around the arm hole as per the pattern but I should have made it more -- looking in the mirror, the start of the sleeve at the top bunches a bit. I noticed this on some other people’s project pictures as well. Again, hopefully blocking will sort this out.

I’m doing joined rounds for the sleeves and alternating regular hdc and hdc through the back and third loop. This way the texture of the sleeves mimics the texture of the main body of the sweater. Starting on the 10th round, I decreased 2 stitches and I’ll do that every 8 rounds from now on (the pattern doesn’t have any decreases).

I had a little bit of one cake (in the purples) and all of the third cake which had purple on the outside, so I’m pulling from the purple and I’m going to alternate sleeves every 8 rounds to keep the colors reasonably balanced between the two.

January 20, 2019

I finished this off yesterday and took it off the blocking mats this morning. I ended up finishing off the sleeves with 7 rounds of sc for a cuff, following MaDashper’s lead.

If I make this again, I’d…

1. Not use a abrupt color-changing yarn
2. Pick up more stitches around the arm hole
3. Do the sleeves in a spiral and play with the decreases
4. Make the sweater longer
5. Make the bottom ribbing longer in the back than the front

The pattern is very well written and I’ll be looking for more patterns by this designer.