Tea anyone?

Holy Crap! Valerie knit a sweater! And it took her less than a year! Amazing! Tea Leaves is finished and I am absolutely thrilled! I've never had a sweater I knit fit so well. There is not one thing I don't like about this cardigan! The round yoke is very flattering.

I did enjoy knitting it in the round - not having any seaming to do was nice - but it did get a little and heavy and awkward as it grew. And having 300-some-odd stitches gets a little tedious. That said, I'm am still planning on designing Dave a top-down sweater, so I guess it wasn't all that bad.

But back to the sweater at hand - I only made a few mods to this one:

Because I have a freakishly short torso (but freakishly long legs - go figure) I cut it by about 3 inches. It comes just past the top of my hips which is perfect. The sleeves are about an inch or two longer (to accommodate my freakishly long arms) than in the pattern, but that's something I have to do to every sweater I make.

I also cut the amount of garter edging. The bottom called for 18 rows of garter stitch. I did 10.

The final mod was to do three button holes instead of two. This was due in part to my need to have things in threes, but also because in the pattern, the buttons looked waaaay too far apart.

I bought these buttons a while ago, with nothing in particular in mind. But when I started the cardigan I knew they would be perfect... and they are.
I just had to order some more for Mom because she fell in love with them when she saw them.

About the yarn:
It's knit with Madeline Tosh Merino (colour is Kale). With the exception of the first skein, it was all pretty well matched for hand-painted yarn. In regular light (ie - no camera flash) the difference is barely noticeable. It's a single ply worsted and it is definitely one of my favourite yarns. It's soft and smooshy with very little itch. It does, however, fuzz up quite a bit, so if you're looking for a smooth yarn that shows off stitch definition - this isn't it. It also attracts cat hair like no yarn I've ever seen - or maybe it's just that the cats would seek this out whenever I set it down.

My only complaint is that the dye came off on my hands - but that's not the end of the world - hands wash.

I still have almost two whole skeins left. Guess what I'm going to do with it? I'm making myself a Loch Ness Monster! (And some will go in a crackghan of course!)

I almost forgot - here is a pic of that lovely snow I was telling you about:

Only an inch or two - but they say there is more on the way.. YAAAY!