FO: Tangled Yoke

And just in time for my sister's birthday. Happy birthday, Sis! I hope you like your sweater! It'll arrive in the mail in a couple of days - after it has dried and buttons have been sewn on.
(I'm also hoping that my new flash card arrives tomorrow so I can give this thing a proper photoshoot before sending it off. Damned little camera can't do knitting justice!)

Here it is, pre-blocking and pre-buttons. I suspect it'll look a lot tidier in 24 hours or so.



(my sister is a handful of sizes smaller than me, so it won't look so, ahem, strained on her.)
(notice the crazy hair? That's because when I got up today I thought I only had an hour or so left of work to do on the sweater so I figured I'd crank it out and then shower. And now? It's 6pm and I just finished. More on this below.)

Pattern: Tangled Yoke, by Eunny Jang
Yarn: Rowan Felted Tweed in Herb
Needles: Addi turbo sizes 4 and 3
Mods: none!
Date started: 8/8/08 (Olympics opening ceremonies)
Date completed: 8/26/08 (i.e. today. and my sister's birthday.)
New skills learned: Three needle bind-off. I think I'd done it once over five years ago, but it's like new to me now. What a great way to make a doubled collar - knit it to double length, fold over, and bind off to a row of stitches that you've picked up from the wrong side. Awesome.

Note: this sweater takes the cake for an object knit in the most locations, at least for me. It started in Switzerland, continued in Seattle, and finished in Virginia. And grew significant amounts in the air above/between these places.



It's DONE! Finally done!!
Okay, maybe finally isn't the right word since I've been working on this sweater for a grand total of 19 days, but the last stages of the work took so much longer than I expected that I feel like I earned "finally."

I have a favor to ask of you all. Whenever I'm approaching the end of a sweater, say these little words to me: "the finishing will take longer than you think." When I protest and say, "no, no, this is a yoke sweater - all I have to do is graft the underarms. Easy peasy" gently remind me that buttonbands are neither easy nor peasy, and that as long as I insist on weaving in my ends at the end of a project I'm going to be investing some time in my project after the bind off. (yes, I really do need to start knitting my ends in. Maybe I'll try that on a swatch next.)

And no, I did not meet the Ravelympics deadline. I also didn't finish it in time for my sister to actually GET her birthday present on her birthday. Sigh. But! I finished a sweater in 19 days - that's something worth celebrating, I think!

The sweater is soaking right now and will wet block overnight. I'll take a closer look at it tomorrow, but for now I'll say that I'm really happy with how this came out. It'll suit my sister well and hopefully keep her warm and snuggly in her new damp and chilly temporary hometown. The cable was a delight to knit - such fun to watch the arms snake in and out of each other! The rest of it was knit mostly while multi-tasking so I have little memory of The Stockinette Expanse.

And now it's time for a beer.