Tea and roses

Not long after I finished my Tea Leaves cardigan a few years back, Mom decided she wanted one as well.
She ordered some beautiful Madeline Tosh Vintage in a gorgeous colour called Rosewood...

...and got started. She knit and knit and knit... and then like most knitters, set the project aside. I bugged her and bugged her to finish it. (Mom has a habit of knitting sweaters than not liking them, so there was  good chance I could steal it!) But the months went by and still the poor cardigan languished. I even offered to finish it for her.

On Christmas day, while we were sitting around enjoying our presents, she asked me if I'd like the cardigan. She'd give it to me as is, and I could finish it for myself. I told her I was more than happy to finish it and give it to her - but she wasn't that sure she liked it anymore. She's not a huge fan of worsted weight sweaters, preferring lighter ones. She wasn't sure if she liked the open style. She wasn't all that happy with the way the yarn was knitting up - it's the curse of the hand-dyed yarn - it can be tricky to get even colour on a large project due to skein variations - and even though she was alternating skeins, she wasn't thrilled with the variation.

So I said sure, I'd gladly take the poor neglected cardigan off her hands. I picked it up on the weekend while I was there...

Yep - that's all that's left to be done - barely half a sleeve and the button bands! Can you believe it??? That's almost an instant sweater! (and I think the skeins mixed pretty evenly...) I'm probably going to have to go down a needle size to match mom's uber-perfect tension though (seriously.... it's so perfect it's evil)

I'm going to try and finish the knitting this weekend - then it's just waiting for the most gorgeous buttons I just ordered.....