Go West!

After a run of knitting dogs this winter (2 corgis, one basset hound), I decided to get back into sweaters. I found a pattern called "Go West" by Bente Geil, who makes some really clever designs, and decided to give it a whirl.

I had a little trouble getting started because there were some typos in the pattern. I always miss my Grandma Grace, but I miss her especially bad when I have a knitting problem and it dawns on me that I am now the most experienced knitter in the family. So I kept at it and pretty soon this:



Turned into this:



Which eventually turned into this:



Shortly after that point, you take the two ends and kind of overlap them at the sides and then start knitting in ever-increasing ribbing until you think you will Just. Lose. Your. Mind. But eventually I came to that very last round, cast off, wet it down, and blocked it on Mike's bed, where it looked--as my friend Deana put it--vaguely cephalapody:



We have had some freakishly cold weather, which is a good thing ONLY in that it gave me an opportunity to wear my new creation:



Unfortunately, I wasn't able to put my hands on the super-cute shawl pin I had bought to go with my sweater, so I'll have to wait until next winter to show this little guy off:



Overall, this was a lot of fun to knit, but it came out much bigger on me than I was expecting based on the photo from the pattern (and I did match the stitch gauge AND I knitted the smallest size). I would gladly knit it again, as the yarn (Geilsk Thin Wool) was an absolute dream to work with, but I think I would cut each section of ribbing by about a third or so.