Despite my trepidation about steeking the fall colors sweater sight unseen, I have to say that it is kind of fun to watch a design emerge one steek at a time. I started out with the lower side panels (the hem to the armpit).

Once the steek was cut, I picked up stitches all along the side, and then knit my way up the underarm panels with short rows, adding in some shaping as I went.

As I got nearer to the armpits, I reached the point of no return. I needed to steek the armholes to be able to maneuver the knitting to finish those short rows. I took one last careful look to make sure that there was nothing that I needed to pull back and reknit in the neck area, and snipped.

When the side panels were done, I picked up stitches around the arm holes for the sleeves.

Then, I put some quick machine stitches in the neck steeks, and went for the grand finale.

It’ll clearly need some ribbing to hold the collar flat, but I’d say it’s a pretty good fit. The neck falls just about exactly where I wanted it, and it’s a good width, too. The sweater is possibly a tiny bit broad in the back shoulders, but it’s hard to tell for sure  without the weight of the arm in place. I’ll have a closer look at that tomorrow, and decide whether or not to try to fold that steek a bit further over to bring those seams in a little.

They don’t look so bad here, though, so maybe it’s just the angle of that first shot. It’s hard to tell with the steek stitches all rolled up inside the body; it bulges in a weird way, but will calm right down once those steeks are tacked in place.

I really like how the square neck turned out, and am very happy with the colorwork band position on the back panel. I wasn’t sure exactly where that would fall in the final garment, but I think it’s just about perfect.

There’s also a tiny bit of bulging in my first side panel; I probably picked up a few too many stitches near the hem. I may snip a stitch, drop down, and work back up, but I haven’t decided yet if it’s enough to bother me.

All in all, though, I think it’s coming out very well for something knit blind from the armholes on up. Two sleeves and one steek left to go!