My dad got me a gift certificate to Eat.Sleep.Knit. This is what I used it on. :)

I got the yarn on a closeout sale price, but only 5 skeins. I had to order one more from Knit Purl. It happened to be the same dye lot. Woo hoo!

I think the weight (and therefore gauge) will be slightly off with the Shibui, but I may be able to remedy that with a smaller needle size. I’ll swatch (like a good girl :) ) to find out.

I swatched (a huge, half-cardigan-sized swatch) and got 5.5 sts/inch, which would be perfect, except once I began to knit, as always happens, my gauge changed. :P :P :P Now my gauge seems to be either a tad too small or it will block out to 5.5 sts/inch. I’m hoping for the latter and powering on, remembering the zen-like calm I felt at Lake Crescent, which is a blue-green quite like this….

I remedied the gauge problem and am getting 5.5 sts/inch, so I should get about 34” at the bust, which will be perfect. The yarn is great! It does turn my hand an alarming green, though…and makes me look like a crazy green bunny lady with all the shedding it does. The fabric is pretty terrific, though. Thumbs up, Shibui! I’m alternating skeins, though I think the pooling would have been fantastically beautiful (based on the band, where I just used one skein). It still pools, but in a…stripey kind of way, I guess. I don’t dislike it, I only wonder what could have been….I’d rip back and find out for sure, but I know switching between skeins when I ran out would look terrible and I can probably get a sleeve out of one skein and savor the pooling there.

Frogged both sleeves after I finished the rest of the sweater. The pooling was pretty cool, but I’d rather the sleeves match the rest of the sweater. Shouldn’t take me long to finish them. I’m going to magic loop both at the same time (to practice for socks). I think I’ll have just about one full skein left over when it’s finished.

Finally cast off the second sleeve (the magic loop was an epic disaster), then had an “ugh…now I have to do button bands!? :P” moment, which required me to trudge up the stairs, begrudgingly dig to the bottom of my WIPs basket (it’s got quite a bit of stuff in it), and drag the rest of the sweater out, at which point I discovered that, in a great moment of foresight months ago, I had ALREADY DONE THE BUTTON BANDS! That means I have only to seam, find buttons, and set the dye! WOOHOO! I’ll start with the dye set/blocking.

After washing and blocking, the fabric became absolutely dreamy! The collar is nice and floppy and the sweater fits over the boobies without any pulling. PERFECT! Now to find some buttons….

John helped me pick out buttons. He’s like a button guru! I originally wanted silver, but then I found the same buttons in bronze and had to get them. Now to sew them on and get pictures!

Pretty good pics for a cloudy, cold 15-minute shoot, eh? Someday I’ll get better.