Grande Plage Pattern Help! Please! :)

How-to Questions
1

Hello all -

This is my third sweater (yay!) but I’m not clear on part of the instructions.

Work back of sweater fine and says to slip onto spare circular needle (although not joining in the round).

RIGHT FRONT:
With right side of back piece facing, and starting at upper right corner, pick up and knit 28 sts, 1 st for each st of back piece.

Questions:

  1. Am I working off the top right of the sts I just slipped to a spare needle? Seems obvious but you never know.
  2. The back piece I put on a spare needle contains 117 sts and I’m only going to pick up and knit 28 sts?
  3. What does the end part of the instruction mean? (1 st for each st of back piece)?

The left front is basically the same by starting with sts counting from the left hand side of the right side of the back piece.

What do I do with the “extra” sts in the middle of the two sides?

Also questions about the joining section. See pattern link below.

Thanks much! I think some general direction on the instructions for the two sides and joining would help me a lot.

http://http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEss12/KSPATTgrandeplage.php

2

It looks like you’ve knit the back down to where the color stitches start, and then you put those stitches on waste yarn or a circular needle.

Then I believe you pick up and knit the first 28 stitches (pick up one stitch in each cast-on stitch–don’t skip any) from where you [I]cast on[/I] to start the front and work that down to where the color stitches start, increasing as you go for the neck. You do the same for the left front.

When the back and fronts are ready to be joined, you knit across all the left front stitches, the back stitches that were held on the spare needle, and the right front stitches. Then the sweater is worked in one piece down to the hem.