I finished this while I was visiting my parents for Christmas. I'm really happy with how it turned out. I didn't bind off for the neck until two inches after the armhole and I changed the sleeves because looking at the photos on Ravelry it seemed like the sweater was sort of pulling off the shoulders on some people. I think I ended up with the shoulder a stitch or two wider when I bound off at the top and I used the article from Interweave Knits winter 07 to calculate the perfect cap. I worked both sleeves up to the cap and then made both caps at once so I wouldn't have to worry about trying to remember what I did for the first one when I got to the second one.

Well I've finally finished the body of this sweater. I knit the whole thing in the round even after I divided/cast off for the neck. I really like knitting this way when I have to modify the pattern because I can modify all the pieces at once without having to try to remember what I changed later. However when you're working 4 different shoulders with 4 different incoming strands of yarn it does have a tendency to turn into a giant tangled mess. I decided to go ahead and to the pick up and knitting for the neck band. Then I'll only have one sleeve to work on. I doubt this will be done before the end of the year but possibly I'll take it home to work on over Christmas.

12 out of 14 inches done on the body. so close, and yet, so far.

Well I wanted to change the sleeve cap/armhole but the article I was reading from Interweave Knits gives instructions for making the armhole first so I put the sleeve aside and started on the body. I have about 8 or 9 inches so far but it seems to be taking forever. I'm not sure if I like knitting in the round or not. It does make the rows take forever but I suppose it is nice to not have to make a whole front piece after making a back piece and knowing how long it takes.

I've had this yarn for a little while and I wasn't really happy with how the project I started was turning out so I decided to make the thermal from knitty.com instead. I've looked at some photos on ravelry and I think I'll probably raise the neckline a bit but since I started with the sleeves I wont' have to worry about that for a while. My original plan had been to try to learn to knit continental style while making this sweater but after ripping out the first few inches of the sleeve half a dozen times I've given up for a little while. I thought with a row of knit, a row of purl, and a few mixed rows per pattern repeat I would have a good chance to get better at continental knitting but actually I just kept messing up which row I was on and forgetting to increase so I gave up. I don't think those rows were particularly loose, although I do find keeping a good tension with continental to be particularly tricky, but I did notice that I was getting a bit of space between my dpns.

Anyway the first sleeve is almost finished. I'm making the second size although I changed the repeats to be every 4 rows for half the increases and then every 8 rows since keeping track of every sixth row was a bit to complicated for my taste (I was working on this project on vacation and I wanted to chat, not count rows.) Also I decided to increase a bit extra so now I'm making the sleeves in the 3rd smallest size - I didn't like how some of the sleeves on ravelry looked that were too tight.

Now that I've gotten going I'm happy with how the texture/color combo is working out, and I'm still motivated (for the moment) to keep working on it even though it's size 3 needles.