FO: Tempest Cardigan.

Relief is the only thing that can describe how I felt when this cardigan was finally finished. I started this back on March 12, and it really should not have taken me this long (I finished it this past Friday). You might remember my first big set-back that took away my mojo for this project. The original pattern is striped, but I had this yarn on hand, so I had to do some math to keep up with where I was in the pattern. Errors on the back resulted in me knitting double the length before the waist shaping that I needed to, which I didn't realize until I had almost finished the back.

It sat for a while in punishment, but I managed to power through the back and right front panel of the cardigan. Then, as I was shaping the waist of the left front panel, I realized I had too few stitches on the needle. I discovered it was because I cast on 4 fewer stitches than I needed at the beginning, which meant I had to start the left front completely over.

I knew I was going to be cutting it close with how much yarn I had to finish this project, so I decided to seam up the back and two fronts and knit the button band and hem before doing the sleeves. I followed the directions exactly for the button band, and once I cast it off, I was horrified to find that the band was way too tight and caused the front to be pulled and bunched very unattractively. I still don't know what I did wrong, but after trying a few things to fix it, I ended up taking it out and picking up significantly more stitches for the band.

The one good thing that came of this project was that I learned how to convert a sleeve knit flat and bottom-up to a sleeve knit in the round and top-down. Like I said, I was concerned about having enough yarn, and I wanted to (1) not worry about having enough yarn to seem the pieces together and (2) be able to knit the sleeves down until I ran out of yarn. I ended up being able to knit them the length they were designed to be, but at least it was less seaming for me!

The odds were in my favor at this point, where all that was left was the buttons. I will normally avoid patterns with buttons. I don't like picking out buttons or sewing buttons, but for whatever reason I still knit this pattern. I figured I'd have to go buy some, but I decided to check to see if by some chance I had 11 identical buttons that would work. My entire collection of buttons was given to me by my mom, so I don't have the best idea of what is in there. I opened one box, and right on top were these blue-green plain buttons that looked to be about the right size. Sadly, there were nine on the card. I set them aside, and opened another box. Right on top, was a card with eight of the exact same buttons. It was fate. I should have bought a lottery ticket that day.

Specs:
Pattern: Tempest by Weaverknits
Yarn: Araucania Ranco Multy, color #330 (2 skeins)
Needles: Sizes 6 & 3 US
Ravelry Project Page: Link
Mods: No stripes, more stitches in button band, garter stitch hem, sleeves knit top-down in the round.

Tour de Fleece (Goal: 30 minutes spinning per day)
Day 2: 33 minutes (Sunday)
Day 3: 47 minutes (Today)