Mods

Neck (pre the sleeve-split) - back, sleeves and row-count for 40”, front stitches for 43”.

Body - increase stitch count to 43” for back, 46” for front. Waist shaping - decrease and increase to 43” stitch count.

Sleeves - cast off on row 6 (5th of moss stitch) of last stripe to make it slightly narrower than, rather than wider than, the others. Right sleeve stripe 1=2xCC, stripe 2=2xA; left sleeve stripe 1=2xB, stripe 2=1xA+1xCC.

Actually did a vestigial swatch! Slightly higher stitch and row count than recommended on 4mm needles but fabric too loose on 4.5mm. Therefore going to keep an eye on sizing and put faith in blocking.

New techniques: Japanese short rows, contiguous saddle shoulder sleeve. Like both, now uncertain which my favourite short-row technique is (of this, German and yarn-over) other than being sure that “wrap and turn” is definitely at the bottom of the list.

Pre-blocking picture, on the hanger, shows a gnarled and twisted disaster of a garment. Post blocking results in something I absolutely love. Blocking it out, with wires, took nearly an hour since the twist was so hellacious. And I applied a hairdryer (as suggested by simplysolid) set to hot. It worked!

Yarn - this is like knitting with twine. There’s no “give” in it at all. It also smells rather strange. And has the twist of a tornado. But I thumped it around in hand-hot water with washing up liquid (!), then soaked in cold water for an hour with conditioner and blocked it like a mutha. And the result, while not capable of being described as “fluffy” is in fact entirely acceptable.

Audiobooks - Inspector Gamache series by Louise Penny. This series started well but towards the end my credulity was stretched beyond all endurance and I had to resist the urge to take the mp3 player by the shoulders, shake it and shout the name of the malefactor. Can he and his whole team really be that stupid?