Going from circular to dpn's

The sweater that I’m knitting calls to switch to dpn’s once I get to the bottom of the sleeves. I’ll have 44 stitches to work with at this point. Using 3 needles with the 4th being the working needle. Does it matter there isn’t going to be even number of stitches on needles?

no it doesnt matter at all. Just spread them out as evenly as possible. It is usual to have an equal number on the first and third needles and the larger number on the middle needle, but there is no hard and fast rule.

You may want to look ahead in the pattern. Sometimes the patterns refer to things you have to do on each needle. For example, some sock patterns will say, “knit to the last three stitches on needle #1, SSK, K1.”

Seeing as you’re knitting a sweater, it will probably just tell you to knit so many stitches and then do decreases rather than referring to certain stitches on the needle.

I agree with tarrentella that–in the end–it really doesn’t matter.

Yes, you’re right – my pattern calls for knit 4 rounds and then decrease and on the decrease I k1, ssk, knit up to the last 3 stitches before marker and then decrease again. Is that going to be a problem??
Then I switch to smaller dpn’s and do the ribbing for the bottom of the sleeves.

No, as long as the decs are either evenly spaced or at one point, which in this pattern is at the beginning of round marker.