Hallejuah! Hourglass is Finished!

Yes, I bet you had almost given up hope of ever seeing this day. But I pulled through, just for you. It's been a long journey, but I'm glad I made it. *chorus in the background sings: "Hallejuah, Hallejuah, Halle-e-e-ju-ah"*

Drumroll please. Here it is, in its FULLY FINISHED GLORY:



It looks so nice sitting on the bed. I'm pretty much in awe that I made something that is even remotely wearable. During my sewing period, I never had good luck with wearable finished products, but then I never spent as much time on sewing something than I do knitting something. And no, I'm not teasing you. I promised model shots and here they are, damnit:


Is it possible to ever get a good mirror shot? It's actually sunny here this morning, and one would think that gobs of sunlight would totally negate the reason for using a flash for a mirror shot knowing that the flash will do nothing but dominate the picture. Anyways... Here's a finished project summary I see on a lot of blogs. It's a great way to summarize, I think.

Project: Hourglass Sweater from Last Minute Knitted Gifts
Yarn: Lion Brand Jiffy (100% Acrylic) in "Country Green" about 7 skeins
Needles: Size 10.5 Denise Interchangeable circulars
Mods: I used a thicker yarn than what was orginally called for, thus, making this sweater a bit bulkier. BUT I would venture to say it was a lot quicker to knit. I had to do some ratios to convert the CO stitches and row counts.
Woulda-Shoulda: You might remember I started making this sweater one size smaller and got about half-way through the body and realized it would be to small (underestimated boob size). So I frogged and knit the next size up. This brings me to my first gripe about this pattern: the sizes are really wonky. There is a pretty big difference between the sizes, which is a problem for someone who fit exactly in the middle of two sizes. I couldn't make the small one because it would be too tight, but the larger size turned out a bit bigger than I would have liked. Exhibit B:



As you can see there's plenty of room around the waist. If I were to make this again (which I think I'd like to, but in Caron Simpy Soft) I would add some stitches to the CO of the body of the smaller size to allow more room for my jumblies, but keep it more fitted around the waist. (people, just cuz a girl got boobs doesn't mean she got belly). Gripe Two: the main gripe about this sweater for many people was the wide neckline. I would have fixed this by doing a couple more decrease rows, but I didn't have enough yarn. So I have to where a tank top underneath when I where this, which isn't a big deal because I normally do that anyway for big sweaters. Gripe Three: Knitting in the round is nice but doesn't help when you have to HEM your edges by hand. Hemming lives stitches wasn't as bad as I thought but it still tested my patience.

Overall, I see myself wearing this. It's a simple but flattering design. It's an easy and mindless knit if you're into that sort of thing. *pats self on back* Hmmm.. now what?