A Sweater: Day by Day

I thought documenting the progress of T's sweater day by day would be interesting and, more importantly, a goad to finish quickly.  Since it's a small sweater, it's not a long post.

Day 1: Measurements, yarn and tools.  I used a sweater we already have for the measurements.

Day 2: A plan and a beginning.

 Day 3:  A few more inches and T's favorite book, which happens to be the only one we brought.  

Day 4: A cold shortens evening knitting time, but the body (to the sleeves) is complete.  

Book thrown in for scale.

Day 5: Lazy Sunday afternoon knitting leads to The Yoke.

Day 6:  The body aaaalmost finished.  Still trying to figure out why the color is different in every photo. T has first fitting. (The sweater fits.  Woohoo!)

Day 7:  Short rows added to the back near the neck.   Those rows I ripped back last night and a morning spent in Metaxourghio applying for residence permit seriously impact today's knitting time.  I don't manage to snap a picture--see above, residence permit.

Day 8:  Second fitting to make sure that neck opening fits over T's gigantic head.  It does.  Gratified to see that what I knit for him last winter still fits.  

Day 9: Yoke finished save for buttons. Sweater languishes while I entertain the troops, who have the day off from school today. And tomorrow.  And the next day.

Day 10: Sleeve 1 begun.  Today's plans include button shopping in Monastiraki.  Tonight's plans include finishing sleeve 1 and busting out sleeve 2 in time for church tomorrow.

Day 11: Finished!  T wore the sweater to church this morning, which explains the crumbs down the front.  Hmmm. They must be smaller than I thought because they don't appear to be in this picture.

Fisherman-esque Pullover with a little help from Elizabeth Zimmermann

yarn: Cascade ECO + in Steel Blue

gauge: 16 stitches/4 inches on size 7 needle

a note:  I added short rows to the back of the neck of T's sweater to give it a better fit, but also because I wasn't sure how the panel of garter stitch would affect the length of the front.  Garter stitch tends to pull  in a vertical direction;  it's very stretchy.  As it happens, the short rows were a great idea, but the downward pull of that garter stitch effectively does the same job.  

one more note:  I did not set out to make M and T sweaters out of the same yarn.  I'm not really into mitchy-matchy clothes, but I like to dress the kids in variations of the same theme.  There was so much yarn left after M's sweater was finished that I couldn't not use it for T's sweater.  And then I thought Well, look at all of this yarn intended for T! I bet there's enough for something for me... (And there is. )