Pattern helpI

[Nichelle]

I desperately want to start this pattern for a boatneck sweater so I am reading throught this pattern first but not understanding how to attempt the shaping armhole section after Row 4. I am totally lost. Can someone help me understand this? I am making it in the size large which will be the 3rd number inside the parentheses. How many total rows are being knitted before the Work 10 rows?

Shape the armhole
Bind off 4 (4, 4, 5, 5, 5) sts at beg of next 2 rows.
Row 1 and all WS rows Purl. Row 2 K2, p1, k to last
3 sts, p1, k2. Row 4 (dec row) K2, p1, k1, ssk, k to
last 6 sts, k2tog, k1, p1, k2. Working in pat as
established, rep dec row every 8th row 5 (0, 0, 0, 0, 0)
times, every 6th row 0 (3, 0, 0, 0, 0) times, every 4th
row 0 (6, 10, 9, 7, 3) times, every other row 0 (0, 2, 6,
11, 19) times—46 (46, 48, 48, 50, 50) sts. Work 10
rows in St st, bind off.

If someone could break this down from Working in pat as established to where it has 46 (46, 48, 48, 50, 50) sts I would greatly appreciate it. I really want to make this sweater but cant start until I understand this part.

[Ingrid]

Let's see. All the odd numbered rows are purled, so that's straightforward.

Row 2 has no decreases.

Row 4 will have the decreases, and for your size, you'll work rows
1,2,3,4 nine times more; then you'll decrease every other row 6 times. At this point you should have 48 stitches left.

So row one- purl
row two- work even
row 3 purl
row 4 decrease

[suzeeq]

Let's break it down to separate steps and you don't need to be counting the total number of rows here --

Bind off 5, sts at beg of next 2 rows. BO 5 sts on the WS row and 5 sts on the RS row. The row before this must have been a RS row for these two to work with the next instruction.

Row 1 and all WS rows Purl. Row 2 K2, p1, k to last 3 sts, p1, k2. These 2 rows and Row 3 are pretty self explanatory.

Row 4 (dec row) K2, p1, k1, ssk, k to last 6 sts, k2tog, k1, p1, k2. A knit row with decs at the beg and end of the row, with 4 edges before and after the decs.

Working in pat as established, rep dec row every 8th row 0 times, skip this one because there's nothing to do for your size.

every 6th row 0 (3, 0, 0, 0, 0) times, again, skip this instruction.

every 4th row 9 times, This is where you start. The first dec is on Row 4 as above, work 3 more rows and the 4th one, Row 8 is where you do the next dec row. Do it 9 times more.

every other row 6 times— 48 sts. When you've done a total of 10 dec rows (the first one and 9 more) dec every other row instead (that's the same as every RS row), until you have 48 sts left. Then do 10 more rows with no decs.