The first paragraph

Another paragraph

Another paragraph

The first paragraph

Another paragraph

Another paragraph

I made this for myself. It took a long time because I didn't know how much yarn I needed at the beginning, and I didn't buy enough. Then I had to wait to get more yarn because I bought it from a local business and the owner had to restock specially for me, which took about a month.

I am extremely proud of this sweater. It was a ton of fun to make because of all of the cables. I actually had only done a few very simple cables before, and never a whole project of them. I was worried this project would be too difficult, but it wasn't bad at all. Just the right amount of challenging :) I'm also really pleased with how it turned out! It's a little bigger than I thought it would be, and the bottom part is very wide. But it looks perfect when I tuck it in, and although I was afraid to block it for a while, I eventually put it through the wash because it smelled a little. The washing machine *ON DELICATE* really evened out all my stitched and felted the wool a tiny bit too, which makes it feel a lot more sturdy, and less able to get holes. I of course never put it through the dryer.

It's made out of 100% alpaca wool yarn, so it's amazingly soft. I have to wear a shirt under it, though. I think my skin has some issues with animal fibers like that. It's okay though, because knitwear is not wind-proof, so wearing a shirt underneath is probably what I would have done anyways. It also keeps my sweat and smell off of the sweater for longer, so that I don't have to wash it much. My GG (what I call my grandma), who taught me to knit, loves this sweater. She gave me a bunch of yarn the last time I visited her, so I'm going to make another sweater just like this as a present to her.

I made this for my sister as a Christmas present.

I started this the week before christmas and finished it on Christmas Eve. I had to stay up almost all night to finish it. This picture is actually me wearing it right after I cast off so that I could post a picture on Ravelry before I put it in a box and wrapped it. Since I spent basically an entire week doing nothing but knitting, my sister already knew what she was getting before I gave it to her, but I still wrapped it in a weirdly shaped box to throw her off.

I'm proud of how it turned out. This was only my second time doing colorwork. Like the last one, the colorwork section has a slightly different tension than the solid section, but my sister doesn't seem to mind too much. I used a yarn from Hobby Lobby that's really soft, but they only had 3 skeins the first time I went, and I had to use another skein to finish, which had a different dye lot. I'm not really pleased with that, but there's nothing I can do. I guess it's not super noticeable (except to me, I notice it a lot), because no one has ever said anything about it to me. I know my sister has put it through the wash, but I have not blocked the piece.

I made this for myself in about a month. I started it at the beginning of October and finished a day or two before Halloween.

I wear this almost every year now for Halloween. I'm really proud of how all of the color panels turned out, because this was my first time ever doing that. Unfortunately, it does get a little wider after the colorwork because I didn't know how to keep the same tension very well. It's okay though, because the sweater is enormous anyways so I only wear it tucked in, and that way no one can really tell that I messed up. I also think the collar is a little too wide. If I redid it, I would definitely do my best to hold a lot of tension during that ribbing.

Because I used synthetic Hobby Lobby yarn for this, it's pretty soft and shouldn't be hard to wash. I actually don't think I've put it through the wash before, because I only wear it for special occasions and I always wear a shirt under it to keep my sweat from getting on it. Putting it in the wash is scary because I don't want to mess up the colorwork, but I never blocked it so putting it through the wash might even up the stitches a lot.