1/11/08 Cast on in the early hours of the morning (around 2am) when insomnia had hit badly. Ribbing on back completed and have reached the waist shaping.

Finally got this sewed together (okay, I had Beth at Black Purl do it), then I picked up the button bands and collar.
The pattern was very off on yardage needed. I lost count of how many skeins of yarn I headed back to the store to purchase and from checking other postings on Ravelry I wasn’t alone. The pattern also said to pick up 56 stitches (4 out of 5 stitches) for the collar. I dropped to 2 out of 3 stitches and still ended up with 62 stitches which was one of the XL stitch counts so went with that. However, I had to figure out the short rows myself as the totals in the pattern were incorrect and so the pattern wasn’t written correctly. It all worked out okay though and I ended feeling rather clever and proud of myself for pushing through.

I would recommend anyone knitting this to consider knitting the sleeves a little shorter. I love long sleeves and yet these sleeves, if blocked would be easily too long on me. I’d say shorten by one to two inches.

I’d also recommend making the buttonholes bigger as the buttonholes are too small meaning that for such a large sweater I had to go with small buttons, which proportionally looks a little off.

So glad I finally finished this up and don’t know why I took so long. Now I’m off to see what else is awaiting finishing in my closet. I’m on a roll.