In the round jumper update

Well, I finally finished the jumper!!! It took a little longer than I thought it would but I have been ill whilst knitting it so I guess I am allowed to take my time haha.

I'm really pleased with how it turned out and it was soooo easy just sewing the ends in instead of having to sew all the bits together!

So....
Here's my attempt at a tutorial without posting my pattern (which I still haven't tracked down the number for)

My pattern was for a raglan sweater knitted back and forth (bottom up) on straight needles, making a fonrt, back and sleeves then sewing them together at the raglan (leaving one open) then knit the neck and sew up the rest of the seams. I've used it many times before but this was my first go at a in the round project, so I converted my pattern from knitted flat to in the round.

Homemade stitch markers made with beads and elastic

I started at the bottom as my pattern said but I cast on both the front and back stitches and then joined to make a round. So on my pattern it said 97sts for the back and the same for the front, so i cast on 97sts, placed a stitch marker, cast on the other 97sts and placed another stitch marker so I would know where my round started and where the front and back were (if that makes sense)

I knitted to the length I wanted the body to be to the underarm, then set it aside and worked on the sleeves. (I normally work both sleeves at the same time so if I make a mistake at least they will both match, but I had to knit one then the other which was a little weird for me, but I got there in the end) I cast on the number of stitches in my pattern but joined to make a round and placed a marker at the start. When I got to the increases I K1, inc 1 st, knit to last 2 stitches before the marker, inc 1 st, k1. I think I would have got a neater finish if I had used a m1 instead but I knitted twice into the same stitch (which is how I would've done it if I was knitting flat). Once I got the the underarm length I added it onto the needle that had the body and knitted the second sleeve.
I did have some problems trying to cast on and rib the cuffs with the circular needle so I ended up cheating and knitting them flat then transferring them onto my circular needle and sewing them up.

Instead of casting off the underarm stitches I left them on a stitch holder. (I had 6 stitches to cast off on my pattern, 3 from each end of the front, back and sleeves - so I put 3 sts from each side of the markers onto sticth holders)

I continued with the pattern decreasing the raglan exactly as it said in the pattern. I then got to the neck shaping on the front (which really confused me and I ended up having to unpick 6 rows :( and starting again)
This is the bit I got quite confused at so i would suggest reading your pattern for the front neck shaping a few times and then writing it down just so it's clear.

My pattern said:
K2, K2tog, K16sts turn, leaving remaining stitches on a spare needle

So from that  I am working 20sts from each side of the front and leaving 15sts in the middle for the front of the neck.
I slipped the first 35sts onto the right side of the needle and rejoined the yarn to start working on the left side of the neck (which is the second side you would work on according to my pattern) <---complicated haha
Once I'd stopped messing around and being silly and actually paid attention to the pattern it was quite easy though. All I needed to do was k2tog on the neck edge every alternative row for 7 rows, whilst remembering to dec on the raglan aswell.
I was then working back and forth and leaving the centre 15sts unworked.
Once I had got to the rib on the neck, I picked up the stitches down each side of the neck and worked in rib.

I then sewed in the ends and worked the underarm stitches together in a cast off.

The best bits of advice I have if you want to convert a flat pattern to a round pattern is write it down first, it may seem easy at first but it can get a little complicated if you're not organised. And also pay attention to your stitch markers and dont end up knitting them into your jumper.

Guess who wasn't paying attention?

The other thing I'll quickly mention is that you don't really need tonnes of different lengths of circular needle. I had a really long one (sorry not sure how long I will check later though) and a 40cm one. The long one was too long for the neck but if you pull some of the cable out in between stitches you can use a longer one with no problems!