March 30, 2012 - I’ve had this pattern and yarn for a while now and finally am doing something about it! I’m so excited about this sweater. The neckline is GORGEOUS, the pattern looks pretty easy, and I love burnt orange. So I hope this turns out as well as I envision it.

I struggled with the cast-on. Tried to cast it on a month ago and just couldn’t get it. Tried again tonight and had to restart it about 3 or 4 times. But once I got it, it was actually quite easy. The mistakes were all dumb ones, but I had to makes sure I got it right. While I don’t mind a few mistakes to give an item “personality,” I also don’t want to compromise quality because I derped.

But it’s going now! Can’t wait to work on it some more tomorrow!

July 21, 2012 - I put this on hold for a while, and just came back to it. I decided I measured myself wrong and wanted to go up a size just in case. There was enough stretch that it fit, but I didn’t want it to look like it was being stretched. The negative ease should take care of that.

So I frogged what I had (all of about 10 rows) and re-cast-on, and have been going on pretty quickly. It’s funny how, after you’ve been working in lace- and fingering-weight yarns, suddenly worsted knits up SO fast. It has about the same number of stitches in the body as the pair of lace socks I’m doing 2-at-a-time, so after working on those for a while, it’s nice to do a similar stitch count and see my fabric grow quickly.

I’m about 4/11 done with the body now. I’m trying to do a minimum of 11 rows per day to get through the body as quickly as possible. I’d really like to be able to wear this by the fall, and considering this is my first sweater, I don’t know how long it will take me in the end.

And then I get distracted by other projects…. XD

July 28, 2012 - I got bit by the sweater bug and just couldn’t stop working on this! Finished the body portion today. Next step is starting the sleeves. I think I’m going to do them 2-at-a-time on a magic loop, if I think I can handle it. I’d rather do that than get second-sleeve-syndrome. Found my other skeins of yarn and wound them. I promised myself I wouldn’t start on any new projects until I finish this sweater and a pair of socks. BUT IT’S SO HARD TO RESIST WHEN I JUST BOUGHT MORE YARN!

August 14, 2012 - Just finished the sleeves! Boy, were they a pain in the ass. I started them on my Denise interchangable circulars (because I didn’t want to move the sweater body off my nice circular), but the cord that would have been long enough is presently holding my aqua sweater that is hibernating. So I had to use two shorter cords connected with a join.

As you can probably guess, at one point the join came undone and I dropped a bunch of stitches. Thankfully I was able to recover them easily, but it was still a pain. After working on my other circular, I really didn’t like doing these in magic loop on the Denise circs, so the join coming undone was a blessing in disguise. I swapped the body to another Denise cord and moved the sleeves to the regular circ, and suddenly I was MUCH happier knitting these.

Although I have to say the 2x2 got really annoying and tedious compared to doing the body. I’m guessing it’s because of the twisting/untwisting of the yarn strands as I went from one ball to the other. I was really not enjoying doing these sleeves as much as I enjoyed doing the body. C’est la vie.

I just attached the sleeves to the body and have 16 rounds to go before I bind off the neck. Then it’s all about working the back. I’m pretty excited about how quickly this is coming along, especially since I bought yarn to do another!

August 16, 2012 - FINISHED!

The photos I posted aren’t the most flattering, but I am a very tired budgie and it’s late so the lighting isn’t very good. But I’ll try to get better pics soon.

Since I will be making another one of these, just thought I’d mention a few things:

This is a very long sweater. I actually don’t mind the length in the body as I thought I would. I’m still debating shortening it an inch or two in the body, but not much. But for the next time I’m definitely going to shorten the sleeves a bit. Instead of the flared-cuff thing, I’m going to make it straight ribbing and cut off about 18 rows or so.

Speaking of sleeves, since I hated doing them so much, I’ll do them first next time.

Had to look up how to do a picot bind off and kitchener stitch. I’ll probably have to look them up again next time, too.

I suck at kitchener stitch. But I actually did pretty well for the back seam. It’s the seams under the arms that are bad. Good thing they’re under the arms!

I’m also still bad about weaving in the ends so they don’t show. But got some more practice this go-round.

You can’t see my bright red bra under this! AWESOME! Because it has the best straps for this neckline. TIP: A balconette bra works really well for the neckline. The one I’m wearing is a convertible that I usually wear strapless, but it’s just so pretty that I’d like to wear it more. Guess what? Perfect thing to wear it under!