My first attempt at... BABY JACKETS!

Dear Friends,

I am not sure where to start from. I have started an ambitious projects, but I don't know how it will go. I wanted to try a "baby jacket" pattern classified as "beginner". I can't remember where I got it from. I search it on Google but it does not come up. I am puzzled!

It says it requires "Cherub DK" and "Cherub Temptations" yarn, but I am using generic yarn. I am mixing three colour. When the pattern says "use 2 yarns of DK", I mix orange and purple. When it says "use 1 yarn of DK and 1 yarn of Temptations", I mix purple and light blue.

I was very thrilled with the plan. First, I had to start with the back: 50 stitches on. Good. 2" in garter stitch, then, 4 times of [6 rows in St st + 2 in Garter st]. All, mixing colours. Garter would be orange and purple, while St st would be purple and light blue. After this, all St st until desired lenght (some 31cm). Instructions said to place 18 center stitches on a holder for neck, and to place on holders each shoulder side, to bind them off together with the fronts. But I am not daring enough to do that, so I followed the second given chance: bind off now back shoulder stitches and sew them to shoulder fronts later.

After this came the hard part: the front sides! This implied doing the same as the back, but splitted in two: 23 + 23 stitches. Also, it involved neck shaping. I HAVE NEVER SHAPED A NECK BEFORE! - Ok, calm down Fla. There must be a solution to this. I tried to follow the instructions. All seemed to go well. The right side gave a nice neck shape. Bind off 3 stitches, dec 1 every other row three times and that's it. NOW... it asked for the same design on the left front, but REVERSED!

I thought this would mean symmetry or something like that. Now. Consider this: if, on right front, neck shaping started with binding off 3 st at the beginning of the desired row, then dec 1 every other row, now I had to DEC 1 AND bind off 3 st at the end of the desired row! This meant I HAD TO CUT THE YARN after BO the 3 last stitches, which caused a stress, because... how was I to continue the following rows after a bind off? I thought the only way was to add yarn, which would produce another loose end, and what's worse, in a neck shape. Oh well. Please, friends, let me know if I did the correct thing or if I misread the instructions. After this, I continued to desired lenght and bind off all 16 remaining stitches. After I bound off, I saw the left front was SHORTER than the right front. I PANICKED. Now I had to learn how to unravel bound off stitches. I trembled.

It sort of worked although the last stitch was... weird. Oh well. I continued knitting ignoring that, and it worked. I worked up to CORRECT length and bound off. Pheeeeeeeeeeeeeew!!

Now, I have two fronts and a back. They look nice and soft. THE WORST part comes now.

I AM AFRAID OF SLEEVES!!! ARGHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!
Please, I need your support :)

Love,
Flavio