I have just knit the gauge swatch so far, and for the first time ever in my life I have washed the swatch. Now I have to wait…

I plan to knit this as seamless as possible so I probably will be making the raglan part (sleeves and body) at once and also the zipper bands. I hope this works out.

02/11/08: I have completed the body up to where the armholes will be, and let that rest as I knit the sleeves. I’m knitting the sleeves in the round too, using magic loop. I still haven’t been able to figure out if the raglan decreases will work if I knit everything in one piece but then - I will find out eventually. (In fact I’m too lazy to compile all the relevant information in one place to see if the row counts match. Which they really should because otherwise you’d probably end up with wavy seams.)

03/17/08: Since I’m knitting a lot of other stuff, some of it on deadline, I haven’t been doing much on this. I started the first sleeve and it looks way too small. Also I’m magic looping it and I don’t know if that was a wise decision. In the meantime I’m compiling all the knitting instructions for the raglan shaping in one place so I can knit that all in one piece. It makes my head hurt.

But I will get back to it eventually, I’m sure.

06/02/08: Since I really want to knit a summer cardigan I have been working on this like crazy the past days (I want to finish this first, otherwise it will become an UFO.). So I worked up to the point where I have to start the raglan, put everything on one needle, and have come to a screeching halt since I need to compile the instructions for all the pieces in one place in order to knit this without my head exploding too much. (The next time I attempt a sweater knit in one piece I’d better use a pattern knit in one piece. Well, you live and learn.) I hope to finish copying the instructions tomorrow and then go and knit it. This won’t be TV knitting though. I’ll need a gazillion markers and all the concentration I can muster. I think.

07/17/08: Surprise. I’ll unearth this again. It’s really cold for July, and so I think I might be trying to join everything together for the yoke - every week now.

10/12/08: Some time in August I started the yoke, knit a few rows, and then I felt too overwhelmed by the project yet again. But today I decided to take it out again (well, it’s autumn, and cold, and I need the sweater). I knit the whole afternoon, and now the yoke is done, and I’m about halfway through the hood. Yeah!

10/13/08: The hood is complete! I knit it like a really big sock heel, again to avoid the sewing together. It worked fine. Now all I need to do is knit the pockets, sew the pockets to the front, wash and block it, and then insert the zipper. Who knows, maybe it will be finished before winter is over.

10/15/08: I finished knitting the second pocket yesterday. Now for the sewing, the washing, the blocking, the buying of the zipper, and the sewing in of the zipper… If I’m lucky I’m going to have it finished before Christmas.

11/21/08: Zipper is in! Hand-stitched it, and it’s a bit sloppy but I wager that nobody will stop me in the street and arrest me for sloppy stitches on the wrong side of my zipper.

11/27/08: Finally managed to take pictures. The two top pictures show the finished sweater, zipper and all. The two underneath, where I’m wearing the green t-shirt, show the sweater before washing and blocking. just to show how much bigger it got. The green is so dark that it’s almost unphotographable.