The Nine-day Sweater

Yesterday I completely forgot that it was the Ides of March, though I really should have remembered given how clobbered I was by work. It's commencement season, and yesterday was the deadline for me to receive many lists of graduating students, which means I spent the first of what will be many days reviewing names until my eyes cross permanently.

All that has nothing to do with knitting except for the fact that I was so busy with it yesterday that I was hardly able to knit a stitch until the work day was done, and that meant that I didn't finish my handspun sweater. But I got really close -- so close that I can say with certainty that it'll be finished today!

The colors are actually fairly accurate here!

I have finished everything but the last five rows and bind-off of the left button band. I knew, intellectually, that a bulky-weight sweater would be pretty fast to knit, but I'm still astounded by how quickly this has come together. I started it last Saturday night, though I got maybe less than an hour of knitting of it in total that evening. I finished the yoke during my Sunday Zoom session the next morning. I'd finished the body by Thursday, I think, and both sleeves were done by the end of this past weekend. All I managed during the day yesterday (during my biweekly team meeting) was the collar, and then I worked on the button bands last night. So tonight's task will be the rest of the knitting, weaving in the last few ends, finding appropriate buttons, and (if I get really ambitious) blocking. A sweater in nine days -- definitely the fastest ever for me for an adult sweater!

I'm going to have to figure out what to cast on next, because I will need something mindless for meetings and whatnot. I finished up my most recent charity hat sometime last week, though it still hasn't been blocked. I used my usual recipe for an average adult-sized beanie, making it a bit more slouchy.

I used two dark semisolids along with a mostly darker blue variegated, and this photo makes it really obvious where I switched, but I think it's less apparent in person. I used up all of one of the three scrap balls and greatly diminished the other two, so it's a success for me. I've been thinking lately about making scrappy socks for charity, as I haven't knit any socks in a while and my fingers have been itching to work on some; I just have to figure out what a good average size is to make (any ideas, all?).

Okay, I should get back to my lists of names now, but I will post again tomorrow with what I hope is a finished sweater and a reading update!