Making progress - Aran-style again

Sweater back panel

Didn't  make cable-ish  sweaters  for 15 years, and now this is the  third  in less than a year.  Would  have  been  good  to finish  it a month  ago ,  but I  am making progress now.  Want to make  another one, more understated, next.  I like how crochet aran texture seems rich and earthy.

It's  still just the basic top-down construction  I've  used for years, with  the added doodling of the pattern stitches.  It can sound complicated, but lots of things  do when they get spelled out.

Sweater fronts

When the focus  is  on  the  measurements  and  not  on  gauge, it's  good  to know the measurement that  matter  first.  Here, that includes, pretty much  in the  order  of use:  back neck, across back at shoulders, armhole depth, chest/bust, upper arm, sleeve  from wrist to  underarm, around  wrist, length from back neck to lower edge.

Choosing the stitch, make a foundation  row, beginning and ending  with a double increase, with each increase adding  enough stitches for a 90-degree  corner.  The same number of stitches get  added consistently  for the  whole  yoke, creating visual  seamlines.

Count the number of stitches  between  the increases, for the back neck - that is how many stitches to add later for the neck front shaping.  For saddle shoulders, increase to the sleeves and  back until the two sleeve saddles are together as wide as the original back neck.  Then increase to the  fronts and  back until  the back reaches the  across-back measurement.  The fronts will have to reach that, too, which it will a few rows later.

Join for a pullover or continue with separate fronts for a  cardigan.  There's  a  lot  of  AT THE SAME TIME going on here, which I happen to like.  Every time one desired measurement target is reached, adjust the  direction  of the  increases to reach the next target measurement.  Increases continue  as set, being allocated to fronts, back, or sleeves, as appropriate, creating whatever  visual line you want.  Once the yoke is finished, there is a decent  gauge  swatch  right  there to figure out how many rows and decreases to work for the sleeves.

With sweaters for children, I often do stripes for the yoke, switch to a pattern stitch in one color for the body, and do some other variation for the sleeves.

Samples of all this are on my project  page  on ravelry.com.