This was officially the hardest thing that I’ve ever made. I think it was also the most rewarding. I sometimes find myself looking at it and wondering “Did I actually KNIT that??” And in 3 weeks, no less.

I learned so much. It was my first time cabling without a cable needle. It was my first all-over cable sweater. It was the first time I’d had the guts to drop a cable down a few rows to fix it. It was the first time I’ve ever done a short row set-in sleeve. It was the first time I’ve actually felt happy and comfortable following a chart (set in my ways, yeah, ok…). It was also the hardest I’ve had to work on getting a gauge. But I was determined to use this yarn, and I’m so glad that I did.

I did run into a few problems, but they were all my own. I managed to misread the very first set of instructions (too excited, probably) and stuffed up the initial set up shoulder/back neck row, which meant a lot of re-jigging to get everything to work. It’s probably safe to say that I learned a lot about fixing mistakes during this project, too.

I had just enough yarn, which turned out to not be quite enough, so I had to skip the shawl part of the collar and just do a shorter, simple rib. I ended up having a few grams leftover from 3 oversized wollmeise skeins.

The pattern itself is beautiful, it fits perfectly, and it all works. If I lived somewhere other than the humid armpit of the world that is the tropics, I would wear it always.