November 7, 2017

Provisionally cast on 372 stitches using 2.25mm needle and a spare cable needle for the held stitches. (Each front is 98 sts and back is 176 sts.)

Work 12 rows stockinette, starting with a knit row.
Row 13 (RS): purl across for turning edge.
Row 14 (WS): purl across but last stitch slip purlwise to start the first selvedge stitch on the edges.

Row 15, set up row: change to 2.5mm cable needle. Work first stitch as selvedge stitch (knit thru back of the stitch) then (k1, p1) x 10 to set up the 21 stitches for the right front ribbing. Knit 76 sts, place marker, C2R (this is a twisted cable of 2 stitches which are worked thru the back of the stitch and mark the location of the side seams), k174, place marker C2R, k76, (p1, k1) x10, bring yarn to front and slip last stitch purlwise to create the left front edge selvedge stitch.

Row 16 and all future WS rows, work selvedge stitches 1x1 ribbing as set and purl all other stitches.

Continue right side rows with selvedge, 1x1 ribbing ribbing and C2R stitches as side seam locations. Work total of 22 rows, ending after WS row.

Next row (RS) secure hem: knit working stitches together with the stitches from the held cable needle keeping all stitches in pattern as you come to them.

Work 3 rows in pattern after attaching hem. On 4th row, make first button hole in left front ribbing (for a man). (I I use Barbara Walker’s one row button hole making it 4 stitches wide. This BH is also found in Poems of Color. Work 9 rib stitches before starting button hole, cast off 4sts, cast on 5sts and continue to end of ribbing.

November 8, 2017

Started right front pocket 1 inch after hem attachment row or approximately 2.25” from bottom of garment. Work across right front stitches to 23 stitches before side “seam” . K2tog, bring yarn to front and slip next stitch purlwise creating a selvedge stitch at edge of pocket. Turn, work selvedge stitch by knitting thru back of first stitch and then work all stitches in pattern. Continue to work only on right front pocket stitches (rest of stitches on hold) with the decrease on every right side row until “X” number of rows have been worked or “X” number of inches from bottom.

November 10, 2017

Left front pocket finished. Next, will pick up inner pocket on both fronts and connect with the rest of the front stitches as well as the back and knit interior pockets with back until point of joining inside and outside pockets.

November 14, 2017

Both inner pockets and rest of sides and back are now joined to outer pockets. 8” of knitting completed. Continuing on with knitting as set until piece reaches 18” which is point for underarm division. This will be a slog!

November 20, 2017

Body now measures 18” from bottom of hemline. Divided for back and fronts by holding 16 stitches at each underarm and then gradually decreasing 8 more stitches at each side over 8 rows. This is how it worked:

With 24” cable needle, work across right front stitches as set and first 8 stitches of back. Hold all these stitches on the 24” cable and continue with 32” cable on remaining back stitches except for last 8 stitches. (Optional: Put the remaining 8 back stitches and left front stitches onto shorter cable needle - for convenience sake - to hold while back stitches are worked.) Turn and work across remaining back stitches to end of row.

Begin underarm shaping for back: BO 3 sts, at beginning of next two rows. BO 2 sts at beg of next 4 rows. BO 1 st at beg of next 2 rows. 144 back stitches remain.

The repeats for this design are either 8 or 10 stitches wide. Since the larger motif is 8 stitches, that works nicely with 144 but I will use a 14 repeats of 10 + 4 for the smaller motif and then when I reach the larger motif, I will increase one stitch so that the 7 stitch lozenge, separated by a single stitch to make the 8 stitch motif is balanced. I will making it 18 repeats of 8 +1 so that when I pick up the stitches for the sleeves, I leave the motifs in tact and just take away the edge stitch on either side.

The hat chart has 89 rows and is much deeper than the Little Humlan yoke which would have been too shallow for my purposes but I like the deeper bottom edge of the Little Humlan so I’m incorporating that into the Stora Humlan. Since there are more rows than I need for this project, I decided to begin with the meaty rows 45-55 (on hat chart) of the smaller motif before going back and continuing with the hat design at row 3. If all goes as planned I should then be able to end at row 59 or so.

November 22, 2017

Completed 47 rows of patterning. This is a complicated design to work flat since so many colors are dropped and then used again on the other end of the needle, often 3 colors and up to 4 in one row gets tedious and I find myself only able to control the chaos by being very tidy in my color order. Also, the weaving in is a bit involved to say the least.

November 24, 2017

Finished colorwork on back after completing row 55. Summary of pattern work: Started with rows 45-55 then continued with rows 3-55. Need to be careful since mixing the order of rows to work meant that odd rows were not necessarily RS or WS.

After last row of colorwork, start with MC on RS of work and work in pattern of k4, p1 matching the example of the previous row but using all MC. Work 4 more rows of stockinette with MC.

Next row, divide evenly into 48 sts for each shoulders and back and begin neck edge decreases. Decrease one stitch each neck edge EOR 3X. Then work short rows on shoulder stitches at 15 stitch intervals, meaning 2x and work evenly across all stitches and put on holder for a 3 needle bind off with front shoulder stitches.

Put 16 stitches for underarm on holder and started decreases for right front underarm.

November 26, 2017

Finished the first front and it was tedious due to the fact that the multiple stops/starts with multiple colors per row seems to be magnified when working a relatively short row such as this. As in the Special Dean for Tim, the shawl collar widens by moving the ribbing stitches over and eating into the colorwork one stitch every 4th row until 45 colorwork stitches remain which matches the width of the back shoulders.

I matched the shaping for shoulders of the back after completing the colorwork but have added the short rows on the shawl collar ribbing starting on row 52 and working these short rows every 4th row. This gets a bit dicey when doing the shoulder short rows but careful notes kept me straight.

Collar short rows on 52, 56, 60,64, 68 and two more times after shoulder join but again on every 4th round with a total of 7 collar short rows. I could probably have done just 6 total and would have eliminated the final one next time.

After shoulder join, continue shawl collar by picking up and knitting together 1 neck edge stitch from back on each RS round (a total of 8 sts). The best way to decrease this extra stitch seems to be to pick up one, turn work and then k2tog. After 8 neck edge stitches have been worked, put half of the held back stitches on cable needle (24 sts) and begin incorporating them into collar by joining in the same way as neck edge sts. When half the back stitches were incorporated, I stopped and started left front.

Yarn amounts are proving to be ok except for color BS 12 which is a pale yellow/gray lambswool. I made an additional order for this color from Pernille, bless her heart. The reason I wanted more of this color is based not on the needs of this project, but rather the one I plan to knit NEXT with all the leftovers of the pattern colors!

November 30, 2017

Finished the fronts and shawl collar. When the two sides of the shawl collar had incorporated all of the back stitches, I then did a kitchener join in the same way as the August 10th notes in Special Dean for Tim. Whew! Also wove in at least 100 ends of colorwork so that I can start sleeves tomorrow. Working top down so I will pick up stitches and work a capped sleeve with short rows.

December 1, 2017

In case anyone else is interested, the first Humlan Hat kit provided all of the yarn (plus I have leftovers) for this yoke with the exception of a couple of yards of AngoraGarnet Lambswool color # 12 which I borrowed from the second hat kit until my re-order from Pernille could arrive. I plan to use the second hat kit for another yoke design that I have in mind. ;-D

December 5, 2017

Finished first sleeve and started second one. Used 2.00mm needle for sleeve hem facing which was 12 rows long or approximately 1”.

December 8, 2017

Whew! Finished knitting and will block in the morning.
Final weight of garment with buttons = 484 grams.
Remaining MC 44 g.

Side Note
I had a near panic as I was halfway thru the second sleeve and became skeptical about the needle size I was using when employing the 16” 2.5mm ChiaoGoo Lace brand needle to knit in the round. I usually knit the angora blend with the same needle in 2.25mm size but the larger for the lambswool gauge. My suspicion led me to my dependable needle sizer where I discovered that one end of this needle was indeed 2.5mm but that the other end was 2.25! OMG, a bit of a panic since as I continue to knit the sleeve, I normally switch to a 12” and then a 9” in the same mm as the sleeve narrows.

But what if I were knitting with the smaller end in my right hand? This would be a difference in gauge. Rip? UGH! Thankfully I did not see any gauge issues when I continued with the correct size needle so either I had the 2.5 end in my right hand or it was not detectable. Either way, I’m disgusted with the needle and went back to check BOTH ENDS of all my needles! I will take this one back to my LYS and demonstrate the need for replacement with a new needle.