Hi
I began this sweater pattern (with reservations) but sometimes I am stubborn. When it says to cast on 46 stitches for a men’s XL and cast on 81 stitches for a sleeve, something is wrong.
Please help with this pattern…what I am missing
Yes, 81 sts makes 19" and that might be right if the sleeves are worked from the top but these are not. There does seem to be a typo because after you work the ribbing and increase then you have 56 sts. This looks like it’s from a book, check for corrections. Or you can figure backwards from the 56 sts - subtract the decs and you probably get something like 41 or 46 for the CO.
So how many stitches do you think I need for both the front and back…46 seems to low for a men’s XL sweater.
You know what I think - they’ve swapped the beginning of the sleeve instructions for the front/back instructions.
Change the first 2 lines of the front to the first lines of the sleeve. Work in ribbing until it says to switch to size 10s, then use the increase instructions for the part that they’re listed under.
So you do the front and back by casting on 81 sts and work 15 rows in ribbing. Then increase to 91 sts. Cast on 46 sts for the sleeves, work the ribbing and increase to 56 sts. That makes a lot more sense to me.
Now, that gives you 42" at the chest for the XL, if you need more room than that, go up to a 10½ needle for the bigger one, that will get you a couple more inches. This is a unisex sweater so an XL woman’s is probably only a man’s L. You might be able to CO more sts - there’s 5 sts difference between the sizes, so going up to 86 for the F/B and increasing to 96 would add a ‘size’; you might not need to CO more sts for the sleeves, 48 would be okay though, but you might need to increase to 61 sts instead of 56.