I’ve been zipping right along with this sweater. I normally don’t like to knit sweaters in pieces, but I decided to pretty much follow the instructions for this one to the letter. Pretty much. When it came time to do the shoulder shaping on the back, I decided to try short-row shaping. It looks really nice and wasn’t difficult to do. If I decide later on that I don’t like it, I can rip back and redo the shoulder shaping with BO. No big deal, really. But I think the short row shaping will be fine.

This pattern is very well written and easy to knit. The shaping is simple to do, too. I would class this sweater as autopilot knitting. Yeah, it’s that easy. I can even work on it while watching hockey. It took me about 10 seconds to memorize the cable patterns. They look very complex, but they are quite simple.

5-8-13 I finished the left and right sides and have started sleeve #1. The short-row shoulder shaping worked out well, but I really won’t know whether I like it until I do the 3-needle bind-off.

5-26-13 Sleeve #1 is nearly complete. And I am still enjoying knitting this sweater. Not even close to being tired of it.

8-3-13 The first sleeve is finished and the second sleeve is on the needles. Cassidy is now my primary knitting project. I need to get her finished before winter arrives.

I finally got the buttons sewed on and the sweater washed and blocked. The yarn softened up a lot after I washed the sweater and bloomed nicely. The finished sweater is even lovelier than I was expecting.