It’s done! It’s finally done! Woohoo! I swear, I think I ripped out the pieces of this sweater and re-knit them more times than anything else I’ve ever knit. Honestly, except for the back, which was only knit twice, each piece was knit at least four or five times. Some of the ripping back and restarting was design-related—I’d try out an idea, it didn’t work, so I ripped it out. But the rest? Bad knitter on needles. I swear. Sometimes I can’t measure to save my life, much less follow even my own instructions. For instance, I knit only one inch of ribbing on the left front, instead of the two inches of ribbing that was supposed to be there. I didn’t see this glaring error until I tried to seam that side of the sweater. After knitting the button bands, after knitting the collar, after attaching the sleeve. Yeah. Misery. I had to take all that out, tear out the shoulder seam, too, rip back the whole front down to the ribbing, and re-knit that piece. Again.

You can bet that I made extra careful measurements to ensure that I had two inches of ribbing before starting the stitch pattern. Arg.

Through all of that, the yarn behaved very well. Beautifully, in fact. It never complained, never frayed, never pilled or got thin and icky. It still looks fabulous.

And now, finally, after all of that, it’s blocking.

Not only is it blocking, but I have the perfect, absolutely perfect buttons for it in my stash. I dragged Dave into Brytex Fabrics in San Francisco once, years ago, led him straight to the top floor of the building (now it’s on the third floor), and showed him their button collection. It’s an awe inspiring button collection. If you ever need a button, or think you might some day need a button, and you’re in the area, go. Go to Brytex. It’s an awesome store. It’s been there in the same building for about forever. My grandmother used to shop there for fabric. And buttons. Anyway, we were there, I found some buttons for something I had made, and saw these wonderful leather buttons near the register. On close-out. I bought ten of each of two sizes in brown, plus ten lovely small dark green ones. The larger of the brown ones are perfect, utterly perfect for this sweater. I’ll sew them on as soon as the sweater is dry.

Now that the sweater is done, I can concentrate on the blue floral shawl again. Guess what I did to it after knitting one row last night. Yeah. I ripped it out. It’s too wide for its height. Back to the drawing board… You know, it’s a good thing I like to knit!