In February, 2011, I posted a photo on here and announced the start of a new project.

A long promised sweater for my husband.

In September, 2011, I posted this:

The torso was to the point of being ready to be joined with the sleeves.

Of which I had started exactly one.

This past February I posted I had gotten sleeve one to the point where it was ready to be joined with the torso and I was starting sleeve two. 

I wrote then that at the rate I was going, I should be putting it all together by mid-summer.

Sometimes my guesstimates are so right I think I’m onto something.

Monday night, as we finished “Game of Thrones” (with some Olympics throw in), I realized I was there.

Yesterday I bought myself a new 40″ circular needle so that all 328 stitches would fit easily on one needle and while watching Olympic water polo and the US Men’s Beach Volleyball, I sat down, took a few deep breaths, counted and recounted all my stitches, read and reread the directions and finally put it all together. 

I’ve read that knitting is quite soothing, that you fall into a rhythm that is almost meditative at times.  This sweater, knit entirely in the round from the bottom up that you can put it down at any point and pick it back up, definitely falls into that category.  I don’t think knitting is about talent as much as it’s about patience. Certainly there are talented knitters, people who can look at a ball of yarn, imagine an end result and just know magically how to make that happen.  I’m not one of those knitters.  I need my hand held on any project not a scarf.  At this point, I’ve been working on this sweater project for 18 months.  It’s been interspersed with smaller projects, mostly scarves and more scarves.  I have carried the various pieces with me on every roadtrip, to every soccer practice and piano lesson. I’ve watched endless hours of college football with this in my hands. The majority of both sleeves were knit watching “Boardwalk Empire” this past winter.  There are mistakes, dropped stitches and honestly, I hope the cuffs straighten themselves out when I block the sweater because they look a little funky. The yarn is slightly stiff and heavy – the finished sweater is going to be one that Pat can wear on the water during the winter to keep him warm.  Originally I had wanted to knit him an Irish Fisherman’s type sweater, but sitting down to it was so overwhelming that I realized I needed the pattern to be as simple as possible.  I stumbled upon Knitting without Tears by Elizabeth Zimmerman and realized this was a pattern and I style I could do.  I am horrible at the finishing parts of knitting – the weaving in of the ends, and especially the part where you have to sew together the finished bits.  It’s not at all like the sewing I’m used to. There is nothing more frustrating than spending hours upon hours on something and have your finished product look less than stellar because you stink at the finishing parts. One of these days I’ll get around to taking a class on proper knitting finishing techniques, but in the meantime, I’m quite grateful to have this pattern that lets me knit from the bottom up, all in one piece.  Knitting without tears indeed.