On A High Fiber Diet

Bound off 7 sts at the armhole. Had to complete the other ear of the fox motif, as those are typically bound off in the regular sized pattern and I am making an extended size. Decreased after that using k2tog and ssptbl until I had 49 sts.

For the front panels, an extra ~4 ins/panel needed to be incorporated, so I split the difference and added 8 additional sts to each side, with the fox motif framed in the middle.

I wasn’t sure whether to center the fox motif between the additional sts or whether to move all 16 additional sts to the seam side, but am sticking with the centering idea for now. Mostly I don’t want the fox motif to be distorted around my chest, so building in a lot of positive ease.

The pockets were easier than I thought they would be! Just need to sew down the lining once everything is bound off and we’ll have pockets, I think.

Lots of fiddly ends for the intarsia; each block or change gets its own little ball, and while I thought it would be easier than the back panel, turns out the back panel WAS the easy one 😅

Next hoop is going to be the shoulder decreases for the front. Saw a tutorial for sweater neckline adjustment that suggested binding off additional sts at the neck. Not sure whether to do that, or to sharpen the decrease curve at the neck.

Had 86 sts after the armhole decreases. Added an additional 4 rows of stockinette after the chart to accommodate for the additional decreases that will be needed on the front panels for the collar line. Bound off 10, 10, 10 sts every row until 26 sts remained. Bound those off too for the back of the neck.

Had a few holes in the color work where I didn’t wrap it correctly; those seem to be fixable in post with weaving the ends around them. There are so many dang ends lol.

I am v happy with how it turned out!!

Next challenge will be the front panels. The part I’m worried abt are the neckline decreases; had to math it out, and will likely end up doing some double decreases.

Behold the Entropy Nest!! (Altho there is significantly less Entropy after I trimmed the overly long leftover tails from earlier rows).

Needed to resize the pattern, as it only goes up to 44”. Need to make it to fit my measurements, plus ease. I cast on 106 stitches for the back, which should give me 6 inches there. It grows when blocking, which will add an inch or so more. The 106 also includes 2 selvedge stitches, to make the eventual seaming easier (original cast on needs to be a multiple of 4). I placed stitch markers after each selvedge stitch, then again to separate my additional stitches from the charted pattern stitches.

All is going well with the intarsia; it is my first time with it and it is frustrating at times. I gave up on bobbins and am just letting it tangle in entropy at the back, pulling what I need from the Entropy Nest. It is actually working quite well and I haven’t had any major tangles or tangles that impeded my knitting.

For the armholes, I calculated the bindoff to be the same 7 sts; hopefully that works out. Next headache is the shoulder decreases. I think I need the neckline to be 26 sts, so am binding off rather more at the shoulders. Not sure yet how this will interface with the front panels, but this entire sweater is a Learning Experience.