More Deco - with progress photos

I've been going great guns on my Deco cardigan, mainly due to my husband having to stay in London for three nights, which meant after I'd got the girls to bed, the rest of the evenings were mine to knit more or less without interruption.

I finished the two fronts and then did the back before joining the shoulders using a three-needle cast-off:

 

Then I picked up 4 stitches to the left of the underarm stitches (on waste yarn), 36 slipped edge stitches, 1 stitch on the three needle cast-off, another 36 down the other side and then a final 4 stitches to the right of the underarm stitches.  The pattern said to pick up 2 sts either side of the underarm stitches, but I thought this would be a bit gappy later on, so I picked up 4 and may reduce by 2 once I'm working the sleeve in the round, or I may just adjust the pattern a bit.  I'll see how the sleeve fits once I've done the sleeve cap.  I didn't use two 2mm circulars to pick up the stitches, but used a 3mm crochet hook instead.  I would have used my 2.5mm hook, but I couldn't find it.  When I use a crochet hook to pick up stitches, I pick up 2 stitches, put them on the knitting needle and then adjust the tension before picking up the next 2.

Here's where I'd got to on the short rows for the sleeve cap by dinner time last night:

I went onto Carol Sunday's website to see her notes on wrapless short rows as mentioned in the Deco pattern.  The technique works really well and I'm very pleased with it.  I'd suggest particularly looking at the notes about the purl rows as that involves slipping stitches.

Here's a picture of the little 'loop' that's made when you lay the contrast yarn over the working yarn.  It's this loop that you pick up to work with the next stitch you want to incorporate into the sleeve cap:

Here's the sleeve cap:

And finally, here's a photo of the full armhole with the start of the short-rowed sleeve cap:

I'm really pleased with the way this is coming out and will be back with more photos once I've got the first sleeve finished.