A few notes

I’m still working on Vivian, and she’s slowly but surely getting near to completion. I’ve added a cable repeat (consisting of 30 rows) to each sleeve, because I’m not quite as skinny as Ysolda and my sleeves were stretching more in width than in length. Now they’re perfect. I admit I’m a tad worried about the length of the body, but I’d rather that be a bit short than the sleeves. Short sleeves just look ridiculous. I’m really hoping I don’t run out of yarn. I had maybe 200 yards spare according to the pattern requirements at the beginning. I got both sleeves, as well as a few inches of the body out of the 2nd skein. I don’t feel like I need to worry, but I am often wrong.

The sleeves are attached! I don’t know if Ysolda really thought it through when she made the different sizes. I could understand the design issue if a tech editor made the multiple sizes though, because it’s an easy thing to miss. What the heck am I talking about, you ask? Well, for the smallest size you put 4 stitches aside when you join the sleeve, to kitchener later. These four stitches are conveniently, the seed-stitch between cables. The cables then flow up either side of the sleeve. Very pretty, yes? So what’s the problem? In my size, you put 6 stitches aside, but you still have a 4 stitch seed-stitch panel. You’re taking one stitch from each cable in order to set stitches aside for the sleeve. And, no less, it’s done on a cable row! Not the best planning. This also means that right away the first stitch from the sleeve that hasn’t been put aside is now converted into the fourth stitch for the cable, effectively eliminating a decrease later on. Of course, none of that is mentioned in the pattern. If you want your cable to continue you have to decide that for yourself. I have no problem with that, but I know people that rely heavily on a designer to explain those things.

I’m not even going to get into the errata for the decreasing on the yoke. In fact, I’m doing what I think looks good. I know the sleeve portion is to decrease down to the 16 stitches that encompass the cable. I also know that the first few decreases are double-decreasing; namely, s2 k1 psso, followed by normal decreases. I’m sticking to that, but apparently the errata is regarding stitch markers and where you decrease. I see no option but to decrease on the sleeve-seed stitches, next to the body cable. I’m sure that’s what Ysolda intended, so that’s what I’m doing.

Stats:
Body and sleeves joined.
Yoke progress: row 122