I set out in making this sweater with two main goals: to knit my first sweater (for my bucket list), and to make a huge orange sweater to wear whenever the occasion called for it (orange is my favorite colour). So with that goal in mind, I upped the needle size and the number of stitches across for the front and back. However, even though I followed the pattern (for large) with the sleeves, I actually had to take back about a foot each for them, because they turned out way too long.

I first thought I was finished and had everything seamed, but then I decided that, despite my upping everything, the body section was far too short, so I picked up all my stitches on the bottom row and worked about a foot more with a circular needle (upside down; this sweater is definitely one of a kind!). But now it’s the perfect length!

I ‘finished’ this originally around May of 2010, and I’m not sure when I started it, but it was sometime late in 2009. It only took me so long to finish because I kept putting it off; I have this bad habit of finishing everything on a sweater except for half of a sleeve. I did that on two crocheted sweaters before I finally finished this one. Anyway, it really was a very easy first sweater, though it had enough patterning to keep me interested.

As you can see in the last picture, the additional length gives room for me to fold it up and make a pocket for my rat to sit in!