February 24, 2018

Had a bit of trouble deciding the gauge. My double seed swatch came in at about 19sts/4in, not the 16sts the pattern uses. This was already on 5.5mm needles and I didn’t want to lose any more definition by sizing up the needles again. However most of the body is cable, and once I did the maths on the pattern the panels would work out with gauge above 30sts/4in?? I knew cables would be tighter but that seemed a lot, so I tested the gauge over a section of panel A and cable C and got approx 24st/4in. Recalculating the sizes as best I could from my swatches I got their 40” coming out theoretically around 39” which would be perfect. Hopefully all the assumptions I made are right.

CO tubular 2x2 rib with a crochet provisional cast on. I’ve never had the patience to do a tubular cast on before but it already looks worth it. Reached second charted row today.

February 26, 2018

10” of the back done so far. I think the width of the piece is looking like 20” I wanted.

March 4, 2018

Finished the back piece, cast on the front in the same way.

March 19, 2018

Put this on hiatus a week before doing the front to make my toy rabbit. I’m back on just this now but the front is progressing a bit slower than the back. Still about 6” to go before the split for the collar.

March 22, 2018

Had a few really productive evenings and finished the front now. I left the top edges of the front and back on scrap yarn so I can come back and do 3 needle bind off later. Started the first sleeve, done about 6” of it so far.

March 24, 2018

Just an inch to go on the first sleeve. I might be cutting it a bit tight with the amount of yarn but I fingers crossed I have just enough with 600g total.

March 25, 2018

Reached the end of a ball of yarn half an inch shy of the end of the first sleeve. I’ve left it on the needles and not joined new yarn while I consider my options.

I’ve joined the shoulder seams using three needle bind off which looks really neat. I then picked up the neck band, having to pick up a few extra stitches on the front neck as I’ve ended up with a deeper neck than the pattern’s. I decreased these stitches over the next row so hopefully it’ll sit nicely. I can’t decide now whether to follow the pattern or to make a double layer folded under collar. Need to decide soon really as want to block this body piece first to help me decide on the sleeve lengths.

March 31, 2018

Finished the last bit of knitting, the sleeves are blocking and hopefully tomorrow I can do all my seaming and get this done.

April 2, 2018

It’s done! Fit is perfect, it ended up measuring the 40” as the pattern said. I was planning on it coming out a couple of inches smaller, based on my 40” afmaeli jumper being larger than I’d like, but I think the seamed shoulders give this better structure as an oversized jumper than the afmaeli’s joined at the yoke construction.

As ever the colour seems much brighter know it’s been knit - but that’s fine. I especially love the super baggy sleeves with the dropped shoulders, but I think it might have been good if there was some narrowing at the cuffs, maybe by the same ratio as the body?

After one wear I’m surprised how warm this it sometimes but it does have almost 600g worth of yarn gone into it.