Irish Moss Sweater

Here's a picture of a sweater I'm working on for my partner, Jeff. The front is on the left, the back is on the right, and a sleeve is across the top. Sleeve number two is on the needles. I've been working on this thing since late August, and I've had to redo big sections due to gauge issues.

I'm really sailing along, now, though. Don't even have to look at the pattern for the most part. The trick comes down to learning to read the pattern based on what you've completed so far, rather than trying to memorize the pattern outright. For the life of me, though, I can't see how you would write out instructions that way. It's all the little rules you notice that make no sense as directions --

- The two wavy lines are always separated by one purl stitch and always cross over any other lines.
- Rather than one 16-row pattern, it's really two 8-row patterns that mirror each other.
- The 1st and 9th rows either cross or are status quo.
- the 3rd and 11th rows bring lines together
- the 5th and 13th rows cross lines
- the 7th and 15th rows separate lines.

That's the sort of thing I'm talking about. It's a way of looking at the givens, or laws that govern the pattern, rather than focusing on all those little squares...