Olympic Gold

Kepler is done. I pulled an almost-all-nighter and then got up this morning and sewed in all the ends. Can't wait to do this again.

Yes, you heard me right. I'm going to do it again. The same sweater. This same sweater to be exact. *sigh*

Kepler is waaaaaayyyyy too big. As you can see from the picture, the shaping is just about nonexistent. Not only can I "pinch an inch", I can grab two handfuls! I kept checking as I went, but doing a bottom up sweater, I found it a little harder to judge how it would fit since it wasn't hanging from my shoulders.

Now that I've gone back and re-measured everything, I realize it was a gauge problem. Remember when I said I was so proud of myself because I swatched long before the Olympic challenge was issued--and even remembered to write it down? Well, I didn't trust myself, so I sort of semi-reswatched and came up with a bigger gauge. So, I extrapolated the pattern numbers out and redid the stitch count and ended up with a sweater that was huuuuuuge. My math wasn't off; I just "enjoyed the process" so much that I relaxed and hit the stated pattern gauge right on (like I swatched the first time), but now I was using bigger numbers. . . .

The cable bands are perfect, though. I can keep those. And the stockinette only took me about 3-4 days. Not too much time lost. Just a little demoralizing. *although I think it's probably better for morale to have a too big sweater rather than a too little sweater. :)

I guess all Olympics athletes--even those that medal--aren't necessarily pleased with their performance. . . but continuing to set higher goals for themselves is what makes them Olymipians, right? :)

So much for the first incarnation of the KepLaurAnda. I'm going to wear it to SnB today and see if I like it any better. Probably won't, but it's worth a shot before I go at it with the ball winder. And next time I'm going to trust myself!

The hubby was sweet about it (I think because he can't bear the idea of my ripping it all out). He likes it the way it is, but joked that I should just go jogging around the neighborhood in it so it'd get wet and felt to my exact body shape. *grin*