For Meghan, with a little help from my friends

Last year, Meghan knit a beautiful sweater for herself. Unfortunately, it was Way Too Small for her. It happens.

When she mentioned on her podcast that it was Way Too Small and was debating a course of action for her (basically) finished sweater, I pinged her and asked if she thought it would fit me. After a brief moment, she said, "Yes," and I offered to knit her a sweater in exchange for the one that didn't fit her.

She sent me a gorgeous sweater, which is very Meghan. Meghan has the kind of style where she can throw clothes together and look stylish. If I do that, I just look homeless and usually colorblind. But look at this gorgeous thing!

Gorgeous, right?

It's fun, and matches a TON of stuff in my wardrobe.

After some discussion, Meghan chose the Twist cardigan (by Bonne Marie Burns, who is a genius) in a heathered hunter green.

First, I started by sending her a a photo of the yarn, to confirm the color:

Cascade 220, out of my stash

Then, the swatch:

Swatching in the car

Then began the sweater. And the taunting.

As I made progress on the sweater, I learned a few things. The first was how to drop down and fix a cable without ripping back on the sweater. The second was a reminder on how much I LOATHE sewing in sleeves. But you know what I do love? Knitting ribbing and cables.

This shade of green makes me think of the drive up to Oregon. Woodsy.

This sweater traveled all over creation with me while I worked on it, and I LOVED knitting the body.

Terrible color. I'm blaming the piano, where I chose to photograph it.

I can't even tell you how pleased I was to finish the body, and how proud I was when I pinned it to the bust. I might have left it there for a while and admired it whenever I walked by it.

This picture makes me think of a figurehead. For the SS Kay.

The body of the sweater felt like it was FLYING off my needles I was working it so fast. The sleeves? Not so much.

It's not that knitting sleeves is hard. I think it's mostly that the bloom is off of the rose with the garment at that point**. There is also the needing to knit two-ness of it. I usually knit my sleeves two at a time using the magic loop technique, but I didn't for this sweater. Mostly.

I started them two at a time, but between the tangling of the yarn, the turning the cables without a cable needles, and the general ennui caused by the knitting of sleeves, I decided to take a couple of the (possibly emotional) roadblocks out of knitting sleeves.

You know I don't like knitting sleeves because there are ZERO photos of the sleeves in progress.

The sweater sat and sat and sat, pieces all knit, waiting to have the sleeves set in. I kept putting it on my to-do list, and *somehow* I managed to forget, or run out of time, or pretend that I had forgotten and ran out of time.

Chloe knew about the sweater, knew that the pieces were done, and has always knows how much I *loathe* finishing work. I had fresh cookies at the house, and Chloe informed me that she would be coming over and setting in the blasted sleeves. T-minus one week to Camp KIP.

And then, the finishing FLEW. I knit the buttonband, found a volunteer with Meghan's bust size so that I could place the non-negotiable buttons, Mom sewed in the grosgrain ribbon while I did our laundry and got prepared for Camp. I sewed on the buttons, which I bought at the Button Emporium, and used buttons that looked like little pewter balls of yarn for backing buttons, and one lone sheep.

I redid the buttonholes four times. Each fancy buttonhole I tried was too much for the perfect little buttons. With great regret, I fell back on the YO, K2tog buttonhole that I learned so many years ago, when I was knitting my first sweater. It was a perfect fit for the sweater.

It just needed *one* more thing.

My finishing touch

I sighed a huge sigh of relief, tossed it in my backpack, and the sweater joined us on our adventure to Camp KIP.

There was a little more taunting before delivery, but my faaaaaaaaavorite thing was when I finally gave it to Meghan:

She likes it! Meghan likes it!


**One exception: unless the sleeves are the interesting part of the sweater. See: Mariah hoodie.