Jumper Progress

Whilst the weather is cool I've been knitting in most of my spare time which means I'm somewhat behind on the reading - although there's been a lot of consulting and reference chasing for something else I'm writing, so it doesn't feel like I'm not reading. I must have had about 30 recipe books off the shelf today to chase things down, and there was something immensely cheering about opening books that have been sitting around for ages and actually using them. Non more so than Magnus Nilsson's massive 'The Nordic Cook Book' which takes up a lot of space and makes me feel a bit guilty - today it earned its keep. 

My jumper is progressing quite well - I've been enjoying making it, progress is reasonable, and I've got a good bit of body to it now. I also sat down with a tape measure, an old jumper of about the size that I want and tried to work out when to start the sleeves, which size sleeves to knit, and if I needed to add another band of motifs. 

I don't think I do, or at least I'm looking at what I've got so far and working out what the placement for the different sleeve sizes within the pattern does to change the proportions of it. I still think an all over is a good jumper to start with, it's easy to break down into manageable chunks of pattern, easy to measure progress, and interesting to work on, and I love this design, but I'm not sure it's the easiest one for me to follow.

To be more precise, what I'd really like is something that breaks down all the decisions I might need to make about getting a good fit. I'm confident with what I've got so far, but having put in 3 weeks of work on it I'm less sanguine about messing it up than I was at the start. I think I've got the maths right, but I've taken bits from 2 sizes (length is from the extra-large jumper plus a bit more, but everything else is from the large size). The sleeves for the extra-large seem extra, extra, large, and would start a very long way down the jumper - I think, and I don't want that, but the large sleeves are longer. 

Sizes are changed for this pattern mostly by changing tension and then the number of rows knitted - which I understand well enough in theory, but am finding harder to get to grips with in practice. This isn't made any simpler by the changes that I've made myself. By this time next week I'll be well into knitting steeks and consoling myself that it'll still be possible to make it longer yet...

If the jumper and carpet look similar, it's not a coincidence.