Before you can start your sleeves, you will need to block the sweater. I took the time to weave in all of my loose ends before blocking. I also did a quick steam block rather than fully submerse the sweater…mostly because I did not want the single ply yarn to grow and stretch before seams helped to stabilize it.
On joining the tops of the shoulders, grafting is an option, although Connie instructs us to do a three needle bind off. I would also encourage a three needle bind off over grafting, as it will help add stability to the garment. If the shoulder is grafted, it will be more likely to stretch and pull when worn.
Sleeves
Although the pattern doesn’t indicate, you should pick up the stitches for the sleeves with the larger needles, as this is what you will knit the sleeves with. I used a 12″ circular needle rather than using double points. The circular will helolp prevent the jogs from appearing where the double pointed needles break. When picking up stitches for the sleeves, I recommend leaving an entire column of the knits showing along the parts where the “K1tbl, P4” rib stitch appears. This will make a nice column/line down the fronts and back where they meet the sleeves. I also recommend that you knit the stitches picked up tbl so that there is less pulling where the pick ups occur.
Sleeve decrease rounds: note that the pattern has you decrease every 10th round, but the decreases are done right before the marker (and end of round) and then right after the marker, which means that the decreases actually happen at the end of round 10 and the beginning of round 11. When counting rows, be sure to always count on the same side of the marker to determine when to work the decreases.