Last week, I finally finished the sweater I started working on last summer. Phew! It turned out I had plenty of yarn after all. Why? Seems that I had a ridiculous amount of variation in my gauge ... for example, each sleeve had precisely the same number of stitches and rows, but one came out 5 inches longer than the other. Right-o. I was pretty exasperated with myself, let me tell you.
Anyway, I re-knit some parts, and then did a lot of creative blocking, and it all came out fine. My husband likes it very much, which is the important part. Of course, the season for wearing it is pretty much over .... but there's always next year!
To make sure it was coming out correctly, I did two fittings. The first was a rough one where I stuck the (nearly-finished) parts together with clothespins and got a general idea of the size. At this stage, I realized I had to reshape the front of the neck somewhat, which was easy, if a bit time-consuming. The next fitting was when I was nearly done; for this, I basted the whole thing together quickly (with bright red yarn, so I could see just what I was doing) and made sure it was fitting exactly right. Everything looked fine, so I picked up stitches around the neck and did the collar in ribbing; then I sewed all the pieces together.
I chose a drop-shoulder because it's easy to design this type of sweater; in retrospect, I wouldn't necessarily choose this for a sweater in this weight with cables, because it adds a bit to the bulk of it. I'm still pleased with it anyway.


