Finally finished my first custom sweater pattern - a few observations

I remember when I was trying to get my own pattern ready for testers. It wasn't the shaping that tripped me up so much as the tension consistency across the whole piece. I was making a little shrug, and if I knit it in the lightest wool I could find, the stitches pulled in differently than the slightly heavier one. It made the finished item look lumpy, even if the math was right. I spent a solid afternoon just swatching untill I found a blend that behaved itself. I ended up using a DK weight yarn, maybe something from Lion Brand or similar, beacuse it offered enugh body without being heavy. My biggest discovery was not just the yarn, but making sure I maintained a very specific gauge during the sample phase, even if it meant slowing down significantly. I found that when I started my testing run, the sleeve length was off by about half an inch compared to my initial draft, so I had to adjust the instructions for the length increase. It sounds like you've already solved the color transition problem, which is huge. For me, it was just the relentless hunt for a yarn that would hold its structure without distorting when the piece settled. Getting those early testers to say the fit felt balanced was the biggest relief!

Congrats on getting the sample done, that colorwork yoke bit is no joke. I did a stranded yoke cardigan last winter in Berroco Vintage and nearly gave up on the jog issue myself. What saved me was reworking my charts so the final round of each motif repeat started and ended with the same color, then I stacked my rounds instead of spiraling. It felt fiddly at first but it killed the visible step at the underarm where I was about to rip everything out.

One thing I'd suggest before you send it to testers: knit the second sleeve yourself from your own written instructions, not from your notes. I caught three mistakes in my sizing that way, including a sleeve cap increase rate that only made sense if you held your arms a certain way. Also, on the merino blend, just watch how it behaves after a wash. Mine relaxed almost a full inch in the body once I blocked it properly, which changed the whole fit. I started washing a swatch before committing to a size after that.

Congrats on getting to the testing stage. When I finished my first self-drafted top, the openwork panels looked lopsided until I started using blocking wires on the pieces before seaming. I'd just been pinning edges before, and the eyelet rows kept wavering one way or the other. With the wires holding the hem and sleeve caps taut, the whole thing finally hung the way I pictured it. Might be worth doing for your sample before the testers see photos, since drape reads so differently once a piece is properly blocked. Did you wet block or steam it?

I've been there with the pattern testing phase. Once the sample looks perfect, the hardest part is actualy getting usable feedback from people. I found that just sending out the pattern wasn't enough; I had to provide a whole range of sizing guidelines for them. If they weren't super clear on where to measure, I'd get confusing notes back about the fit. It's amazing how quickly everyone interprets sizing differently, even when you're sure your measurements are correct.

Did you have to specify exactly what part of the body they should be measuring for sleeve length, or just give them general instructions?

Nice one getting it this far. For my first self-drafted sweater I learned real quick to write down every mod I made while knitting the sample, not after. I'd changed the armhole depth twice and by the time I typed up the instructions I'd completly forgotten which version I'd settled on. Had to recount the sample rows with a tape measure to figure it out. Now I keep a cheap notebook next to my knitting bag and scribble the counts as I go. Made the test round way less painful when the questions came in.