I finished it!!!!!

“Thank god it fits!” (Except for the extra long sleeves. I was planning on doing a bit of time in a stretching rack later anyway)

A bit more detail:

Horrible bathroom photos, but the light was better!

Wow, my hair is actually looking not too bad. Note the length on the sleeves. Why, Yes, I meant them to cover almost all the way to my fingers, thank you very much.

Stats:

Pattern: Lace Panel Sweater from Jo Sharp Knit Issue #2
Yarn: Mission Falls 1824 Wool, 12 balls + a smidge (50g each) in color Russet
Size: I made the next to largest size, which says it’ll fit a 39 3/8″ bust. Ha. I’m bigger than that. My gauge was a bit off; and it did stretch both width wise and length wise when washed and blocked.
Needle: 4.5mm Addi Turbo
Time to knit: early March 2007, finished, early June 2007
Time put on hold because I was annoyed at it: About 2- 3 weeks

Thoughts: I liked this pattern. It was extremely easy & quick to knit. The shaping really makes a difference on the fit. The one thing I did NOT like about the pattern is it has you measure the sleeves to a certain Number of Inches. Well, only a gorilla has that long of arms when it’s not blocked out. I’m not sure how to combat this except stretch more when you’re measuring sleeve/body length when it’s still on the needles. I ended up blocking sleeve #1; realizing it was waaaaaaaaaaaaay too long; then knit the 2nd sleeve shorter; and reknit the top of the first sleeve to match 2nd sleeve. It should have made it another inch shorter, but didn’t think it’d need to be that much shorter when I was contemplating how to ‘fix’ it. I think it still looks ok. The sleeves needed easing a bit, as the armhole was a tiny bit larger than the sleeve cap. I’m not sure if that’s totally normal or not when doing set-in sleeves. I still feel like a rank beginniner when it comes to that. I’m very happy with the finishing job I did though.

These are for the russet sweater:

Now I’ve got some seaming to do!

I have been knitting! This shows the progress (head cut off due to totally stupid expression on my face):

You have to look closely to realize the arm in back has no sleeve : ) The whole sweater is basted together; so I’ll have to unseam it, block the pieces, and then put it back together in a more permanent way. I wanted to check the fit since I’ve been worried about it fitting properly . The lace pattern scrunches up quite a bit as you can see on the sleeve. It’s possible the sleeve will get too long when I block it. I’ll try hard to block it for width and not length. I detest sleeves that are too short with a passion, so I’d rather have them too long than too short.

My new book had a sweater in it that demanded to be made. I brought some of my stash with me to tide me over until we get the rest of my stash household goods out of storage. Luckily, I brought the correct yarn for this:

A few days later, we have more progress:

This is unblocked, the shoulders are three needle bound off together, but the side seams are just basted together quickly. The color in the second picture is more accurate (and doesn’t look so hot with the red t-shirt I have underneath it, owell). I’m 1/3 of the way done with sleeve #1, but haven’t knit on it much in the past few days.