Done!

This sweater is now officially done, but it didn't get this way without its share of knitting pains. The instructions were about as clear as mud and there were numerical errors. I would not recommend this pattern to someone without extensive knitting experience. On the other hand the cable patterns were easily memorized if somewhat unconventional (the smaller cable and part of the larger one is executed from the wrong side, something I've never encountered before). I did my share of tweaking to this pattern, starting with a different yarn, and therefore a different gauge. Not a major issue, as I simply ended up knitting a smaller size (once I realized that just because the gauge on the ball band matched the required one by the pattern didn't necessarily make it so!) Instead of short rows at the shoulders, I shaped them by casting off in sets of four stitches at the beginning of each row and working a k2tog and the end of each row to create a smooth contour. I cast off the band on one side but kept knitting the band on the other side once the shoulder stitches were cast off to create the neck band. I sewed the band to the sweater as I went along to get the right length and attached it to the other side. This turned out much nicer than my attempt to knit the back of the neck band as written. Because I was worried about running out of yarn, I worked a provisional cast on for the sleeves and once the body was done I simply worked the sleeves down until I ran out of yarn (I had tried to calculate the yarn required for the final cast off but ran out half way through the second sleeve and had to rip back a row of seed stitch on both sleeves to be able to finish the cast off). This is all that's left of the yarn after I finished all the seaming! Talk about stash busting. Now the sweater is going for a nice swim in some Eucalan and a blocking. Final picture once it dries.

Thanks for another great month of Madness, Michelle!