This is the obligatory bathroom selfie. Sorry.

I tried to enlist Hubby to take a picture of me in it when I finished Monday night, but they all came out grainy. You know- as pictures tend to do when you take them at night. And since I left for work so early Tuesday morning (it was still dark out), it was either deprive you all of the sweater-y goodness… or take a bathroom selfie.

It came out ALMOST exactly how I wanted it to. I like over-sized sweaters, so it’s NOT hugging my curves. I think the sleeves could be a bit longer, but I’m really not worried about it. I plan to layer it over a long sleeved shirt, so the sweater sleeves won’t need to be longer, once it starts getting colder.

And of course I had to wear it yesterday… even though it was 86 degrees Fahrenheit outside… THIS sweater is why I started knitting. And I’m proud to say that it IS, in fact, much softer and nicer than the one I bought at Walmart… the one that drove me to teach myself to knit.

According to Ravelry- I started this sweater in January. And I knit a LOT of things in between then and now, so I’d say realistically- it only took me a month of actual knitting. However- I am not a monogamous knitter, so anything ELSE that struck my fancy was cast on and knitted. Plus- with dad’s health problems, sometimes I just needed a little – – okay a LOT of no obligation knitting.

The only… drawback, is that the pattern calls for 1500 yards of yarn. I used 973. That’s a difference of 527 yards of yarn. Now- the pattern doesn’t call for a specific yarn, so I’m thinking that the yardage is more or less accurate to gauge. It’s probably rounded up to the nearest whole number, but even with that- I’m using 500 yards less than the pattern called for. Taking the shorter sleeves into account- I’m still 250-300 yards less than the pattern. Hmm… remind me to do a gauge measure of the finished sweater and see how close to gauge it is…

Nevertheless- I feel… accomplished.