My Seattle sweater is finally off the mats

The float spacing thing took me three sweaters to figure out. I kept hearing people say 'let the floats stretch across the needles' and it never clicked until I actually spread my stitches out on a long circular and stopped tugging the working yarn at all. My first Fair Isle attempt was a toddler sweater, thank goodness, because the chest was so tight it would have fit a cat. Dominant color consistency was my other big lesson. I did a pair of mittens last February where my dark green looked muddy on one side and crisp on the other, all because I switched which strand sat on top depending on how I was holding the yarn. Now I literally hold one color in each hand and never swap, even when it feels awkward. I block differently than you did, for what it matters. I pin aggressively on those foam tiles with rustproof T-pins, going fin by fin on any motifs that want to wander, because my steam from an iron once flattened a row of trees into green blobs. Wet soak and patience works better for me than pressing ever did. The three tries on that skyline motif sounds very familiar. My lighthouse band went five attempts before the symmetry matched on both sides of the neck. Wear it proudly to your group, the ones who knit will know exactly what went into it.

I gave up on full soak blocking for big sweaters years ago, honestly. My basement takes two full days to dry a wetted-out pullover and I once had a hemline go musty because I got impatient and draped it over a chair before it was ready. Now I steam everything. Pin the piece out dry, lay a damp pillowcase over the colorwork, and hover a hot iron above it without touching. The steam relaxes the stitches almost as well as a soak and the whole thing is wearable that evening. I did that on a lighthouse cardigan last fall and the wave bands evened out beautifully.

The thing I'd add for anyone doing thier first colorwork garment is to block your swatch the same way you'll block the finished piece. I skipped that on a fair isle hat early on and used Shetland wool that fluffed up and swallowed half a stitch gauge, so the finished hat fit like a beanie for a toddler. Now I knit a swatch, steam it, measure, and adjust before I cast on anything with a motif.

Also a small tip for motifs with vertical elements like towers or lighthouses: count your stitches between the edges at every repeat row rather than trusting the chart alone. I caught a two-stitch drift on mine around row six of the pattern instead of after binding off.

I'm curious whether the ferry chart gave you trouble at the sleeve crowns, because curved surfaces do awful things to vertical motifs and I ended up redrawing mine twice before I understood that the stitch count has to stay constant through the decrease rounds or the picture leans sideways. Also, does the yoke have an even multiple for the orca repeat, or did you fudge the last few stitches with filler? I've stopped pretending I don't just quietly add a wave or two when the math refuses to cooperate.

Update: tried the steam approach on the hem after reading that reply about two-day drying times, and honestly it worked so much faster. Still fighting a slight lean in the ferry charts on the second sleeve though, exactly what one of you warned about. Did you end up redoing the chart symmetrically, or just accept wich way it tips?