Knitting -- the yoke's on me

So these tops started with a normal fingering-weight jumper and took some detours.

So the purple one was the first; the yoke is the Selbu Rose and yeah, it didn't turn out very well.

The light blue one turned out pretty well, it's a Fair Isle motif.

The green one uses a vine pattern that I used on a sleeveless top years ago.

The red one has a Fair Isle motif that didn't come out well because I was using up leftovers.

And the dark blue one still needs to have its underarms worked shut; that motif comes from a pattern on DROPS.

I might be making a black one; it will use the Fana star.

I have matching sweaters to wear with all of these so they are good for all but the coldest parts of the year, and for that I have long-sleeve turtlenecks.

Cable on your 300 stitches or whatever to your size 3 24-inch circular needles for the hem and work K2/P2 rib for 8 rounds.

Knit 102 rounds, marking your underarms, center front and back every 10 rounds. (That's why I use yarn. It's lighter and less fiddly and you can still get an accurate count of the rounds you've done.) Stop 7 stitches short of the left underarm and put the next 14 stitches on a holder. (p.s. I usually have the left side of tops where the yarn tail is from cabling on.)

Cable on 108 stitches to a size 3 16-inch circular needle and work 8 rounds of rib. Then work 42 rounds, marking the underarm. In round 43, work past the underarm marker for 7 stitches and put 14 stitches of the underarm on a holder. Then knit the sleeve onto your 24-inch circular needles and knit to 7 stitches short of the other underarm marker, putting the next 14 stitches on a holder.

Work the other sleeve and knit onto the needle with your body. Knit 4 more rounds without decreasing.

On round 5 above the underarm, knit up to the last 3 stitches before the sleeve. K2TOG, K2, slip stitch, K1, PSSO. Knit to 3 stitches short of the other side of the sleeve, slip stitch, K1, PSSO, K2, K2TOG. Knit to other sleeve and repeat.

On round 6 knit to the sleeve, K1, slip stitch, K1, PSSO and repeat in reverse at the other side of the sleeve. Do the same for the other sleeve. For the rounds up to the motif, you will decrease every row in each sleeve.

Now you have a choice. On round 8 and every third round, you can K2TOG before and after the sleeves like you did on round 5, as well as doing the decrease on EVERY round on the sleeves. 

Or you can wait until round 10 and every fifth round to do the K2TOG. 

At some point you have to plan your yoke. I recommend that the yoke motif be no more than 15 stitches high. The highest ones I used were 13. Once you know how wide the motif is, you know how many stitches you need in the last round before you start working it. 

So the motif on the dark blue top is 15 stitches wide to allow for a stitch between motifs, and 13 high. It could have been 15 if I had worked a white round before and after but I didn't.

I worked 41 rounds above the underarms. In round 42, I worked K3, slip, K1, PSSO. Then I had 15x plus 2 stitches, and I decreased by those 2 stitches on opposite sides of the first round of the motif.

When I was done with the motif I had 255 stitches.  The neck is 132 stitches around. I had to take out 123 stitches. On round 56 I switched to a 16-inch circular needle and worked K3, slip, K1, PSSO, which got me down to 191 stitches. Round 57 was plain knitting. Round 58 was a repeat of round 56 and left me with 143 stitches.

I worked a mid-back elevation in round 59: K14, wrap, turn, P28, wrap, turn, K47, wrap, turn, P66, wrap, turn, K85, wrap, turn, P94, wrap, turn, and knit to end of round.

Work round 60 above the armpit taking out stitches if you are still not down to 132.

Work 6-8 rounds k2/p2 rib for the neck. Close the armpits using kitchener stitch from the outside and weave in your tag ends.

If you want long sleeves, you could work a round of your motif above the cuffs if you can fit at least two repeats in the stitches there.

This is sort of like the faux set-in sleeves I did for the Breton jumper, but it decreases faster so you don't have to take out as many stitches once you finish the sleeves.