I finished up the body last night, and started on a sleeve. Spit splicing the yarn is working great
I also did a long-tail cast-on for the stitches under the arm when I set up the body stitches. The first body row begins with casting on 8 stitches, so I did a long-tail cast-on and dropped the end when I got to the body stitches. When I got to the other underarm stitches I tied a piece of the same color yarn to the working strand and did the long-tail cast-on again. I like the nice edge this gives, as well as easy stitch pick-up, and it also seems to reduce those pesky holes you tend to get. Plus, if you do have any holes you have tails at each side of the underarm seam to sew them closed. This will be my go-to technique going forward.
The pattern calls for 6 cm of ribbing at the hem, but I only did 4, 6 just seemed excessive, and the sweater is plenty long enough on me.
Pattern: Holly Sweater by Ruth Sorensen
Yarn: Shetland Wool
Needles; US 4 (3.5 mm) and US 5 (3.75 mm)
