Thank you to everyone who gave me feedback on Instagram on the chart. I ended up deciding to try and knit from the chart as written to create the swatch. After a couple of rows I got used to looking at the symbols and the knitting sped along. The time spent in charting it by hand helped in that it allowed me to see what the background and pattern colors were. To do this, I focused on the white rows in the middle and then charted rows above and below.
This picture shows the swatch of the main pattern. It is two repeats of a 34 stitch pattern (with 34 rows). It uses all five of the original Shetland 2000 colors:
Shetland White (2001)
Mooskit (2002)
Shaela (2003)
Moorit (2004)
Shetland Black (2005)
Looking closely at the swatch, I can see all of the variation between shades. But with the swatch hung on the wall, the Moorit and Shetland Black merge into a single "darkness'. Similarly, the Mooskit and Shaela become a single grey/brown (brown/grey).
The pattern is written at 32 stitches to 4 inches/10 cm on size 3.5mm needles. I knit my swatch on 2.5 mm needles and got about 30 stitches to 4 inches. I could go down another needle size, but am thinking I might stick with this. The sweater is meant to be loose and this would allow me to layer a something under it and still have some ease. We shall see.