Problems in Black and White

 I have been working on the first sleeve of the Lillehammer sweater on and off since last summer. Mostly off-because I knew I was heading for trouble. The reason is because of this teeny tiny chart. That's all there is-along with the directions to increase 2 stitches at the beginning and the end of every 4 rounds 27 times. Yeah, right. Increase and keep in pattern? How? Neither the chart nor the directions offered even a hint on how to do this correctly. These are the things nightmares are made of.

So I completely made it up as I went along and that wasn't easy. I had to create those weird little motifs out of thin air one bleeping stitch at a time.

When I got up near the top where those triangle thingys start, I realized I could no longer just make it up. I printed out three copies of the pattern and taped them together and then realized with horror.....

...that I should have had not only those dotty things but those stripes all around the dang thing in order to transition to the sleeve top design. I was so busy trying to figure out how to make the increases with the little dotty things that I didn't get the big picture. At. All.

See. The back side where the increases are is all dotty. I am very proud of those dots. They were hard to come by.

The front of the sleeve has two stripes and somehow there should have been more on the back but I have no idea how I would have made all those increases line up with all those motifs. My brain doesn't work that way.  Some brilliant person on Ravelry had the same trouble and just knit hers top down because decreases are easier to manage than increases. I wish I had seen that sooner. I am afraid this sleeve is on the way to the frog pond.