An Almost FO!

It's been a few years since I seriously picked up knitting needles.  I was tinkering with crocheting for awhile, and even bought a hairpin lace loom!  I first purchased a loom from Amazon.com.  It's a Clover brand loom that will make a "braid" about 3/4"-3 1/4" wide.  I'm using old stash of a Tilli Tomas yarn called  "Pure and Simple" and "Disco Lights" in the American Beauty Colorway.  I know, a bit expensive to be testing out a new craft, but, hey...I like to live on the wild side!  Anyway, things are really shaping up and the shawl I'm making is coming together!

Shawl in progress.  Ignore the white yarn, it's waste yarn that I'm using as a place marker.

But like I said, I've picked up the knitting needles again and have restarted a project that I started over 4 years ago.  I started a project that was featured in Knitty's Fall 2007 (yes, it's sat for 7 years...shut up) called "Cherie Amour".  This pattern created by Ashley Adams Moncrief had a distinct 1960's feel which I loved!  So I ordered my yarn (handpaintedyarn.com bulky merino in Carmine Red), and commenced to casting on.  I got the body done, but when I finished the sleeves I noticed that the sleeves were a bit smaller than the armhole.  I knitted the sleeves up again, and again, they came out maybe 2" short of actually fitting into the armscye.  By that time, I was JUST. DONE. with this pattern.  I frogged the entire thing vowing to take a step back, figure out WTF was wrong and then start again.  Yeah, 7 years later...

I happened to stumble across the yarn while digging through my stash.  It's a miracle that I remembered what pattern this yarn was for since I am, you know, getting up there in years.  hah!  Anyway, I printed the pattern again (it's free on Knitty) and cast on, hoping and praying that this time I wouldn't just toss the entire thing in the fireplace and have a mini bonfire (it's happened).

I got the body of the knit done pretty quickly.  I started this maybe mid-April (?).   Oh, forgot to mention that I picked the size small.  I quickly knitted up a sleeve, and guess what?  Yeah, it was STILL smaller than the armscye by 2"!  What. The. F????  Soooooo...I frogged the sleeve and sat and thought about it.  I decided to try and just knit the sleeve a couple sizes bigger.  Instead of a size small sleeve, I knit it in a size large and OMG it actually went into the armhole NO PROBLEM!

I finished the second sleeve this morning and just now have it sewn in.  The sleeves are a little on the long side.  I didn't expect the sleeves to "relax" that much after it was knitted up.  I finished at about 20" and I think loosely measured, they're 23" now!

About this yarn...I'm not sure if handpaintedyarn.com is making this anymore, but it is soft!  Soft and easy to knit.  However, having sat for 7-some years, some of it got eaten by moths (I don't know for sure, but how else would yarn just happen to get chewed up).  I noticed this while knitting.  Spots were coming up worn looking or hanging on by one ply.  Luckily, the moths didn't find this yarn tasty enough to completely destroy so most of it was still intact!