Before I moved, I finished my very first sweater.
The pattern was a gift to me in a yarn swap and all the rage online. People were knitting it up left and right and loving every minute of it. It seemed like a great first sweater project because I would have plenty of support from the online knitting community. Once I had made it, I completely understood why everyone loved it so much. It was simple top down construction with no seaming. It was made out of bulky yarn so it was super quick to knit up. All around it was a great gratification piece. I finished mine and wore it before I left town.
Unfortunately I only had to wear it for twenty minutes before it was undeniable that it was too big. The bulky yarn and the garter stitch didn't really have much for drape, and I felt like I was wearing a light weight version of football pads around my shoulders. I wore it for the rest of the evening anyway because I was outrageously proud, but I knew it was going to have to be frogged and redone. Since moving a frogged sweater just sounds like a knot waiting to happen I set it aside intact and waited until we got here to pick it up again.
The great think about a quick knit is that when you knit it in a smaller size it goes even quicker ;). Not long after I finished my
second sweater, Juliet was knit back up. Unfortunately in the move, I lost her button. (This is the dramatic climax of the story so I'm going to play it up a bit) I searched everywhere! I dug though all of my yarn and notions. I searched among my beads and other miscellaneous craft stuffs. I unpacked boxes that I had planned on not opening until we moved again. Then this weekend when I drop a stitch marker, I had to pull back one of the cushions on the couch. There was the button. It was a joyously tearful reunion. Now my Juliet is finished.
I learned a lot making Juliet, but I'm not certain it is a pattern I would have picked out on my own. Because of my pear shape, I generally try to avoid raglan seams. (Those are the shoulder seems that start at your armpit and go towards your neck.) They narrow my shoulders, and really I need my shoulders to look wider to offset my hips. I tried to fix that with
boobholder like top half. I was hoping that the plunging neck would accentuate curves and distract from the shoulders. However, in doing this, I created a babydoll like flair which hides my waist. While my waist isn't perfect, it does help create the hourglass look.
The long and short of it is that I loved knitting this top, but it doesn't really fit my style or my body type. I'm afraid I won't wear it very often. I'm not going to frog it, and I'm going to try to encouage myself to wear it. I'm also going to be keeping my eyes open for another pattern that calles for 600+ yrds of bulky yarn. So the story of Juliet ends with:
To Be Continued....
This pattern is the Toddler Tunic(pdf), and I started it in some wisteria KP Swish Worsted that I had unclaimed in my stash. I started it in the middle of our LOTR marathon because I had finished all of my Kitchener stitch and Hubby's socks (which I'm trying to get a modeled picture of before I blog). I frogged it already because it looks off center to me. It is not, it is actually centered just fine, but all of the raglan sleeve increases are facing the same direction. I think that is what makes it look a little off. It would probably fit just fine, but since Francis was a top down raglan, it will be a great guide for which two rows of stitches need to be leaning the other way. 
