Comments upon finishing:

1. It is not a long project--I knitted after work when the weather wasn’t too hot and it took me over a week to weave in the ends because I was stupid and didn’t do it as I went along and I got bored weaving and would quit after a while. So the 5-6 weeks it shows here is unrealistic--if you are a “dedicated” knitter who knits every day (and more than an hour or two after work), this will finish up quickly.
2. The pattern has a crew neck collar. Boring and, I think, more difficult on this sweater. Underneath the collar I chose is some very ugly stitch work where the crew collar would be. I actually did the crew collar (in solid cactus) so that the neck would be at the right point to start the side collar I decided from the beginning to use. IF you follow the pattern for number of pickups (at least in the 2XL) you are going to have gaps and ugliness all around.
3. The sleeves were too long for me so I shortened the number of stripes. If I ever knit this again (probably not--Texas doesn’t lend itself to wearing too many heavy sweaters), I will start decreasing after the elbow, and make the wrist more fitted). I used size 4 needles on the cuffs because I realized I wanted them a little smaller.
4. I made it the length of a Polo I wear--which made this more of a tunic (as a very large woman, I don’t wear short tops). I wish I had made it a few inches shorter and used a different shirt as a length guide. Totally my fault.
5. All that said, this is one of the few patterns that really DOES fit a large woman.

The yarn was on sale for 50% off. I got an additional 20% off the prices listed because there was an additional sale.

THIS may actually cause me to go on a diet and lose weight--knitting a big woman’s sweater takes a long time.

My first provisional cast on--no problem.

I added a 4 row line of mustard yarn between the olive and the hazelnut. Because of my size, I like to do what Tim Gunn would call a distraction for the eye so you don’t see just yards and yards of hazelnut sweater.

My arms are shorter so I took the last MC stripe at the wrist and just made it into the cuff. Just garter stitch, like I did the bottom of the sweater.