three times a lady: the saga of my first Starmore



Elizabeth I from Tudor Roses by Alice Starmore in Marks & Kattens Orkide

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She is done! Thanks so much for all the encouragement yesterday. I don't know how I could have completed this project without all of you you supporting me! I was completely frustrated, but then I got worried that if I took a break, elizabeth would end up stuffed in a project bag for another six months, so I just ripped and redid the neck right away. I reknit the neck using smaller needles (size 1's!) and adding another twenty(!) decreases. It holds perfectly well now (it's a full two inches smaller), but if any more stretching occurs like the other night after washing, I'm off to the fabric store to get some seam tape and little snaps to try out the great suggestions Larry and Cindy made the other day. But for now she fits. Check out the difference: elizabeth II and elizabeth III!

Luckily the front and the back of this sweater are the same, so I'll be choosing to wear the stains on the back, where I won't see them and may even forget about them. Perhaps if I grow my hair really long.... I do plan on knitting up a little swatch with the remaining yarn to test how this stuff would react to dye should I decide that I just can't handle the stains or, for that matter, the white.

What an experience! I'm glad I made it through this project and really do like the sweater I've made. It's clear to me now that this was just the absolute wrong yarn to have used for this sweater, but I do love the yarn itself and it was what was recommended to me, so I stuck with it and made it work in the end. I think she's just lovely.

No pictures of elizabeth today, since I'm ripping out the neck. After washing, the whole sweater stretched out including the already-loose neck. I'm going to try - calmly - to rip out the neck and knit it a bit smaller, adding decreases in the two rows of garter stitch before and after the diamond pattern. Here's a picture of the edge pattern so you can see where I'll have to be adding decreases. I can't believe that I'm back to ripping. The whole sweater has become too large again and there are still those #@*^! stains. What is the point? Someone remind me.

In fact, there's altogether way too much ripping going on here. Last night, after finishing the back of the second giranimals sweater I had to rip it back to the armholes because I messed up the initial decreases and then after reknitting had to rip it out again because I had measured the length from the cast on edge and not from the end of the ribbing and it was too short. I am so tired of ripping!

Elizabeth is all sewn up and the neckband is finished, but she still has some minor problems. Before I get into that though, let me say that the sweater fits incredibly well, feels absolutely wonderful on and I totally love it! I've washed it and it's blocking now, so you'll have to wait until tomorrow for pictures. I must thank Melissa, who was also finishing up a frogged and reknitted sweater this weekend, for her encouragement. I am so proud that I had the courage to rip this sweater out and reknit it and then that I got all the math right when readjusting for gauge and size! So, now that the self-congratulation moment is over, on to the problems. And I really, really need your help here, since I'm going to have to venture into unchartered territory to fix 'em!

First, the neck is still a bit large. The sweater sits nicely on my shoulders and isn't falling off me or anything. Unless I move my arms around a lot. Then I get that Flashdance off-the-shoulder look, which isn't really what this sweater is about. I think that the yarn I used has a certain amount of elasticity and is also very smooth and drapey so that it's a little too happy to slip off a shoulder every now then. Is it possible, oh wise and experienced readers, to sew in some sort of ribbon or band around the inside of the neck to stabilize this area? If so, what sort of ribbon/band and how should I attach it?

The second problem is probably a result of having ripped this sweater apart so many times. There are some small stains on the yarn that simply will not wash out. I hadn't noticed them when knitting the yarn and they aren't too visible in daylight. But they are noticable under indoor lighting and are unfortunately right across the middle of the sweater. I still don't know what I was thinking buying white yarn for this sweater! Now, to my question. The last time I mentioned this, Leigh suggested that maybe I could dye the sweater. What do you all think about that? Could it work (the yarn is Orkide by Marks & Kattens and is 20% silk, 40% merino wool, and 40% acrylic microfiber)? Could I do it, never having done any dyeing before? I don't want to ruin the sweater trying to fix it!

I'm looking forward to your feedback. I hope you all can help. I love this sweater so much, I want to be able to make it something that I can really wear and really enjoy wearing. Thanks!

I made some progress on dressy, my first big sewing project. The front skirt panel is now attached to the front of the bodice, so it's finally starting to look like a dress. I couldn't get a good picture since it's so long - I'll have to wait on that until I can hang it up somehow. Anyway, except for the hem at the bottom, the front is finished. Comparing it to knitting, I'm guessing that I've done the equivalent of completing the back of a sweater, since the front of this dress is the easiest part with the simplest shaping and styling. The back is made up of more parts and has a zipper. Yikes! I did start on the back pieces in class on Thursday. Here is one half of the back of the bodice, which has been stay-stitched and has half the back tie attached. Purty.

In knitting news, I've begun to sew up elizabeth III. I was so anxious to see if it will fit this time, that I just sewed up enough of each seam to be able to slip it over my head and get a feel for how it will look. And... drumroll please... she's going to fit perfectly! Okay, I know I said that last time, but then I was thinking that adding the neckband would lift the sweater up quite a bit. Now that I know how it will hang when it is done, I can say with confidence that I knitted it just the right size - snug and shapely instead of big and baggy. It seems fitted just right through the waist and the length of the body and sleeves should be much better. Apparently, all the resizing calculations that I did were correct. I am so relieved! So now I have to finish sewing up the seams, add a neckband, weave in all the ends and then celebrate!!

[By the way, I am pro feeling like a woman, but con Shania Twain.]

I'm all done with the sleeves for elizabeth III. My Venus de Milo finally has her arms. She's now waiting alongside the bug sweater and the giranimals jacket in the pile for seaming and other various and sundry finishing touches. What to start, eh I mean finish, first??

Still taking a break from all the finishing work on the boys' sweaters, I've been doing some actual knitting! Here is elizabeth back on the needles again. Right now I'm just getting into the raglan decreases on the first sleeve. The yarn coming out the side there shows you how far down I took out the seam. I ripped back to about an inch above that. There was a little bit of a line at the point where I ripped back and started reknitting, but I pressed it a bit and now it is hardly noticeable. In general I was able to recreate the gauge surprisingly well (close up pic here).

I've fallen in love with this yarn all over again. It is just a dream to work with, so smooth and soft. But I still don't know what I was thinking buying it in white! Where did I imagine I could wear this sweater? I hardly ever leave the house without the boys and when I'm at home, fuhgetaboutit! Maybe I can wear it to the Knitsmiths. Every week. Ha, ha.

Thankfully, I was much more sensible when choosing yarn for my husband's vest. The brown should be more forgiving and is really quite lovely. After starting the ribbing last Wednesday, I picked up the vest again last night and knitted enough so that it's on its way to looking more like the beginnings of something sweater-y than just some needles with a bit of yarn hanging off them.

Despite recent progress, both the bug sweater and giranimals #1 have a ways to go before they are done. I've got a ton of ends to weave in on both. The bug sweater still needs a neck and giranimals #1 has some tricky seaming and the pocket embroidery left to do. These won't be finished this week and I have to keep myself from getting all crazy trying to get them done real quick. So I've given myself a day to relax.

Relax yarn, that is. The front and the back of elizabeth III are blocking and I've ripped back the sleeves to the elbows in order to reknit them a bit smaller. Remember how big the sweater was when I finished it the first time?! Back then after I realized that she was way to big, I asked:

When does it become time to give up on a project? How many times are you willing to redo a garment that you really love to get it right? More specifically, what the heck should I do with my elizabeth I sweater?? The options are:

1. Just leave it and love it.

2. Redo the neck so that the emergency omigod-this-is-huge decreases are less visible and leave the rest, let's say, to drape very loosely.

3. Undo raglan seams, frog front, back and sleeves down to the armholes (again!) and try to math-up some smaller/shorter version of the top part. It would fit better around the bust and the shoulders, but the body would still not be form fitting at all.

4. Undo all seams, frog entire front and back, reknit them in the smaller size and frog the sleeves as necessary to have raglan decreases match.

5. Throw it in the back of the closet and never speak of it again.

I'm proud to say that I opted for number four - the most ambitious of the productive solutions. I was encouraged to see that others have made the choice to rip, like Theresa and Bonne Marie and most recently Melissa. Melissa's sweater was in Jaeger's fabulous Chamonix yarn. That yarn is so nice, you can't waste it on a sweater that you don't absolutely love. And that's the way I felt about elizabeth III, both the design and the yarn (Marks & Kattens Orkide). I can't just like this sweater; I have to be able to love it. I was reassured that I'd made the right choice the other night, while watching The Mexican on cable. Julia Roberts asks Brad Pitt: "When you really love someone, but it just isn't working out, when is enough enough." "Never." You said it, Brad. Now there's some good knitting advice from Julia Roberts!

And so the yarn is hanging in the bathroom working its kinks out, again. At least I know that it holds up to washing real well! No need for new pictures here, since it looks just like it did last fall: blocking and relaxing.

Happy New Year, everyone!!

My new year's goal was to finish up all my recent projects so that I can now get back to the older projects I've still got on the needles. And the results...

Newly completed:

• my blue hat: Finished the quick little hat for myself in a jiffy and I love it. Lookie! The yarn is so soft and it feels so warm and snuggly on. I've named this project 'my blue hat' in honor of Becky (my blue house), who managed to find me what were practically the last skeins in all of France of this now discontinued color! Yea for Becky!
  
• mutssjaals: I finished weaving in the ends over the last few days. Obligatory cute pictures:

 

Old, but not forgotten:

• native, now in progress since Spring 2002. My mother is getting anxious to wear this and I'm excited to see what leftovers I might have of the Rowan Handknit DK Cotton.
  
• elizabeth III, in progress since Fall 2001. I have reknit the front and back (again!) and still need to rip out the sleeves, reknit them, sew it all up again, and pray!
  
• dale bug sweaters, in progress since Fall 2002. I was doing well on the first of these when Christmas knitting interrupted me. I'm looking forward to getting back to these and to try out the steeking with my new sewing machine.

Wishing you all a wonderful new year filled with many successful projects!

Made some progress on the crazy continental since my last post. I've just begun the raglan shaping. I think my tension is becoming more even, but I wouldn't swear by it. And I'm still not knitting really "cleanly", I mean like you see in instructional photos. The left index finger seems to have the most to learn and while it's still building up strength and experience I'm cheating a little with occasional help from other fingers and a lot of wrist movement. But I think I can catch a glimpse of the promised continent.

And in a brief excursion back to American knitting, I decided that I just had to pick up Elizabeth and finish the front before I set her aside any longer. I don't want those stitches sitting on the needles to get too stretched out. I just finished it this evening (see here) and will work a bit on the crazy continental and the dale swatch before I come back to redo the sleeves. That requires more ripping and washing, so I need to psyche myself up for it anyway.

I got the latest Rebecca magazine finally! I have a german subscription that is sent to my in-laws and they put it in the mail when they have other stuff to send us. I've heard lots of talk about the "new Rebecca", so was excited to get a look at it. So they say the new Rebecca is bigger. It is surely a lot bigger than previous issues, but it's now only going to be published twice a year! And the Baby & Kids only once every two years. [imagine frowny face here.] They also have patterns now in some bigger sizes, but many of the sweater patterns are still written for just one single size. That makes sense perhaps for some of the designs (oversized sweaters or tiny form-fitting shells), but still generally irks me.

But let me just say I still really love this magazine. It is definitely one of the reasons that I got so into knitting. I don't know if I would have been so excited to knit more stuff after the baby blankets if I'd only seen, for example, Knit 'n Style. (Note: There are nice things in Knit 'n Style, but nothing that has made me say "I just have to learn how to make that!".) Rebecca just has such stylish, fabulous, sumptuous, and lovely knits. And the patterns are often quite clever. Now, I'll admit that much of the stuff in Rebecca is little too high fashion for me--I actually wear a bra--, but I liked thinking this was a magazine made for hip knitters like me. Well, apparently, I was wrong. Now there is the new Edition Rebecca for women (gasp) 30 and over. Has knitting become so hip so fast that I'm now over-the-hill at 33? It seems that I am, sadly, not a Rebecca; I am a Rebecca-wannabe. [imagine less hip looking frowny face here.]

Speaking of Rebeccas, have you seen the new blog, hi, it's rebecca yet? She's working on a beautiful sweater with Rowan's new Cork yarn. I really love looking at what other people are working on because things often look so much different made up than they do in the catalogs. I'm not sure I would have noticed the Bless sweater she's making when flipping through the Cork book, but I'm really impressed with how it's turning out. Thanks for opening my eyes, Rebecca! And Becky of fluffa! has so convinced me of the fabulousness of everything Phildar that I'm going to have to entirely change my opinion of France (not to mention move there and learn French in order to find the stuff and be able to read the patterns!).

And on a non-Rebecca note, here's how Elizabeth is progressing.

Out kipping again. After having no luck with my sock while coming back from dropping the car off at the shop, I decided to try a different project for the ride out to the dealer to pick it up. I started making another tiger hat, this one for my nephew for Christmas. He's 6 and the pattern is only written for 2-3 years, so I had to guess at about how much larger to make it. Here's a picture of progress so far. I stopped right where the intarsia begins for the tiger stripes. Didn't want to attempt that in the train! I'm not sure if I have enough of the orange yarn, so I'm doing the rolled brim in the contrast color (that's actually how it is in the original pattern).

Elizabeth is also coming along. I've done the edging, short-row shaping and first dart. I'm feeling pretty good about how she's turning out. Lookie, lookie!

Here's how I spent the boys' naptime yesterday.

In other news, I got my first chance since Knit Out to do "the kipping". Since I stay at home with the boys, I really don't have much opportunity to knit in public and they're way too young for me to be able to knit when we're out (at the playground, for example). But yesterday the car needed to be brought to the dealership for servicing and I had to ride the subway back home. Perfect opportunity! I brought my stripey baby sock with me and turned the heel during the ride. It was very pleasant and no one seemed freaked out by my knitting, but I have to admit that I did a very bad job on the heel. I'd like to blame it on the subway, but I just haven't got the hang of the short row heel yet. I keep taking a break between finished socks and forgetting how it was that I did it last time. Needless to say, I was too vain to rip everything out in the train, so I just kept knitting the heel all wrong. Well, I didn't have anything else to do. Now I can go frog it too!

I finished the back of Elizabeth I. Comparing it to the old front (here), it looks like it will be about an inch shorter and an inch narrower. That's about what Starmore gives as the difference between the two sizes and it seems good to me. I had to do a lot of math, since my row gauge is off with this yarn and I have to keep raglan decreases even everywhere, but I think I got it right. Now, I'm working on deep breaths so that I can rip out the front and start it again. I still can't decide what to do with the sleeves - whether I should rip them out entirely like the front and back or try again to just rip back below the sleeve cap and start reknitting there. Last time, I got a slight line across the fabric where the tension and the yarn (due to washing) wasn't exactly the same. On the one hand, I'm already comitted to completely making this sweater over, so I suppose the sleeves should be redone from the beginning. On the other hand, keeping the lower half of the sleeves doesn't affect the sizing, so why reknit it? I can't decide whether I want to be obsessive and make it all be perfect or if I should give in to my general laziness and specific weariness as regards this project and just keep what's working. Hmmmmm....

I've been working on the old website again, this time on my germany pages, so I got in the mood to do a little german web surfing. If anyone out there speaks German, here are a couple of german knitting blogs I found last night. Claudia has a lot of great pictures in her blog (and archives), so take a peek, even if you can't read German. And the little sock house is a terrific looking site with a gallery of finished socks and links back to english-language sites (including Knitty!).

I also made a bit of progress reknitting the back of Elizabeth I. I've begun the armhole decreases. And here she is. Now I'm off to the Knit Out. Woo hoo!

Here's Elizabeth III now, thanks to a little (OK, a lot) of reality tv. My husband taped "the Amazing Race" and "Junkyard Wars" for me yesterday and I watched them this evening after "Survivor". Great tv to knit by - entertaining, but not compelling enough to be distracting. Unlike "Blue's Clues", which you would think would actually provide me with some knitting time during the day, since my boys just freeze in front of the tv entranced by Joe the whole time it's on. But, oddly enough, Joe seems to have the same effect on me.

The only problem I have with tv knitting is that sometimes what I was watching gets associated with the project somehow, so that the next time I pick it up I think about the stupid show that was on when I was working on the decreases or whatever. For example, I really started to get the hang of the intarsia knitting required in my much neglected Native sweater while watching "the Osbournes" for the first time. Now every time I even think about picking up that sweater again to complete it, not only do I remember the whole episode (the one where they are Christmas shopping in NYC) but I feel like I need the Osbournes in order to get back into my intarsia rhythm! Luckily, the sweater isn't for me, so once I finish the thing, I can break it off with Ozzy.

Since I have the twins and have to knit two of everything for them, I suppose it's only right that I knit each of my sweaters multiple times. This is the fourth time I've knit the front/back of the Elizabeth sweater. You could say I know the pattern pretty well by now.

Despite the monotony of doing it all again, she's is coming along pretty well. I've started working on the darts. There are ten of them over the waist area and I got two done yesterday, so I should be able to make it to the armholes by next week. When I'm done with the back, I'll rip out the front and reknit it and then I have to work on the arms. I think I can keep about half of them and will only have to reknit the top shaping to match the new armholes. Whew! It's a bit indimidating, but I'm hoping that slow but steady progress will get me through this Sisyphusian project. If it doesn't fit this time, though....

Elizabeth is back on the needles, finally. I've begun reknitting the back and have completed the edging and short row shaping. Here's my progress so far (and here's a close-up of the detail that I love so much!). The yarn survived its wash and straighten process and feels good. I'm really enjoying knitting with it again. This is a great way to enjoy using this yarn some more without destroying my budget!

And I finished the second of the eight planned stripey baby socks. Here they are so far. I still haven't decided if I want to make matching pairs or not. What do you think?

Not all too much to report from the blueroom here. I'm washing and straightening the yarn from Elizabeth I. Take a peek at the yarn drying on hangers over the tub. And I'm finishing the little tiger hat. I tried it on the boys for a quick size check. Here's a dark, but still cute picture.

Just in case you all were obsessing over the Elizabeth I sweater as much as I am, I'll share a few links with you that I found last night. I was trying to find pictures of finished versions of the sweater to get a better sense of how it should look and all the things I could do better (very healthy, huh?).

So here's what I found. The German yarn store Wolle & Design has the picture from Tudor Roses posted. Next is Mara's gallery with a couple of pics of Elizabeth I (scroll down about half way and you'll recognize it). I see she decided to do it in white too. And it looks perfect. So it is possible - it can be done. Of course I didn't do the center panel with the cables. I decided that I liked the shaping of the sweater most of all and I don't like having yarn-overs in critical areas, if you know what I mean, so I left it out. Caroline, from the ASOF group, also has a picture in her gallery. She did hers in blue but in cotton, which she said led to some problems with its stretching out and not holding its shape. It still looks great, though! And look at all the other amazing sweaters she's done! Finally, Sandrine's version (scroll all the way down), in red and all the way from France. She did a fabulous job on hers and she's also done Mary Tudor, which is one of my "someday when I am a much better knitter" projects. Wow!

... it has ceased to be... it is an ex-sweater.

Here's the back of Elizabeth I (since this is the third try with this darn thing, I should just start calling it Elizabeth III!). I'm leaving the other half as is for now so that I can use it to judge how much smaller the back is as I reknit it. Anyway, the ripping went fine, no knots in my stomach, which makes me think I made the right decision, and not all too many in the kinky yarn. But I can't quite work up the energy to start the whole straightening the yarn process. Again.

I've been blocking the little bear and tiger hats and as soon as they're dry I can add on the ears and then sew them up. Yeah! I've been languishing here for a while without any finished projects and am looking forward to being able to update my hot off the needles page. I've got lots of extra yarn and except for a few rows with the bobbins, the project is pretty easy, so I have decided to make another tiger hat for my nephew. And maybe some tiny Opal tiger socks for his new little brother (born in August). All part of my elaborate plan to avoid reknitting this sweater!

I bit the bullet and have begun to take apart my Elizabeth sweater. If you haven't read about all my trials with this sweater so far, you can check out the elizabeth I archive page. I decided that I can make it fit better and since I've already reknit most of it once, I know it can look good after being unraveled and redone.

It is a little sad, though. I had a wearable garment, which was unfortunately just too big (see here) and on top of that I did a marvelous job with the sewing. It's so depressing (not to mention tedious) undoing all those perfect seams! Here's some before and after pics of today's destruction.

It is, however, helpful to know that others, like Ivete are out there unraveling as well. Thanks Ivete for the feedback and support!

When does it become time to give up on a project? How many times are you willing to redo a garment that you really love to get it right?

More specifically, what the heck should I do with my Elizabeth I sweater?? I just can't decide and go back and forth everyday about it. To recap (check out last weeks' blog entries below), it's come out just beautiful, but is clearly a size too big. And although I must say that I am happy to find out that I am smaller than I imagined, I am not as thrilled about wearing it as I had hoped. My dilemma: although I am honestly quite pleased with how it looks, I just keep thinking how much more amazing it could look if it actually fit me!

The options are:

1. Just leave it and love it.
   
2. Redo the neck so that the emergency omigod-this-is-huge decreases are less visible and leave the rest, let's say, to drape very loosely.
   
3. Undo raglan seams, frog front, back and sleeves down to the armholes (again!) and try to math-up some smaller/shorter version of the top part. It would fit better around the bust and the shoulders, but the body would still not be form fitting at all.
   
4. Undo all seams, frog entire front and back, reknit them in the smaller size and frog the sleeves as necessary to have raglan decreases match.
   
5. Throw it in the back of the closet and never speak of it again.
   

Help! What do you think?

I haven't woven in any ends yet, but otherwise I have finished the sewing for Elizabeth I and the neck did shrink down quite a bit, aided by my radical decreasing (way beyond what is called for in the pattern).

Results: First the sweater itself is just beautiful, in my humble opinion. I am very proud that I finally got it to this stage and that it came out looking so wonderful. BUT, there are small gathers all the way around the neck caused by my extreme decreasing. They're not unattractive, but I know it would look a lot better if they were not there. I'll try blocking and if that doesn't work, I'll rip out the neck and do my decreasing over several rows instead of all at once. The real problem is that I seem to have made the whole thing one size too big. It's looks lovely on but is long and loose and I had hoped that it would be more form fitting. I still don't seem to have the hang of estimating how big/small to knit stuff for me and how to regulate the amount of ease. I do take measurements and compare with other garments but I always seem to be just a little off. I was actually worried that this sweater would be tight!

So, I am a little disappointed that the sweater didn't come out exactly as I had imagined it, but I do love it and I am looking forward to wearing it after it's all finished. In fact, now that I know that it's not perfect, I should feel more comfortable about putting it on and exposing it to the harsh elements outside of the closet!

Well, I'm still sewing! Since this sweater is so lovely and has such a simple design (white stockinette stitch in a fine gauge) I'm really working on making the seams as good as I can get them. Here's a new picture.

I'm a little worried about how large the neck opening is. I know there will be quite a few decreases as I pick up for the neck edging (knitted to match the cuffs and bottom), but right now the thing is gigantic. Gauge and stich count are both correct though, so I'm just assuming this will be another one of those magic design moments where things transform themselves even though you don't exactly understand how. I'm sure that Alice knows what she's doing!

I've managed another day without starting a new project. Yay for me! I'm finally finished with the blocking and I'm sewing up Elizabeth I. Here's a picture of the sweater finally taking shape. I stopped at this point to slip my arm into it and get a feel for how it will fit. Oohh, it felt good!

So the moral of the story: don't give up on those projects gone bad. After I first knit it, this sweater was all kinds of too long and the front and back had totally different gauges and I was really disappointed. But now I think it might just turn out great! Yippeee!

This blogging thing is pretty cool. I'm working on integrating this page into my website, so bear with me if things get wacky for a day or two. In the meantime...

Must... not... begin... new... project! I'm still blocking Elizabeth I (here's what I hope is a better picture of the detail than I posted last time). I always want to start a new project as soon as I'm at the sewing stage of the last one. I just miss the actual knitting! So, Iam having a real hard time restraining myself. I'm not up to starting the front of Native just yet (too much concentration required!) and there's a simple little stockinette sweater that keeps calling my name. But Native is promised for Christmas and with all those ends to weave in, I had better not pick up another big project right now.

Of course, once I'm done sewing....

Well, I've got one arm of Elizabeth I pinned down for blocking (that sounds funny!). With two toddlers I don't have much "safe" space to lay things out for blocking, so I'll have to do one piece at a time and it will take me a few days to get all of them ready for sewing. I'm actually looking forward to the sewing this time, for two reasons.

First, this is my very first raglan sweater. It's only my fifth adult sweater over all, but I've had problems on the others with the sleeves and shoulders not sitting or draping really well. I'm hoping that the raglan will just be a better fit.

Second, this was my one UFO (unfinished object) after a year and a half of knitting and I'm excited about it finally getting done. Much thanks go to my knitting group the Knitsmiths and the ASOF'ers at Yahoo Groups for inspiration!

I just can't wait to put the sweater on after all the problems I've had with it (my substitute yarn was quite a bit off on row gauge and being new to knitting, I didn't realize how important that was). I've ripped out and reknit about 50% of it and since I'd let it sit for so long, I had to unkink the yarn before reknitting. Thanks to Bagateller for posting instructions and pics to guide others through it! Anyway, now it should fit. The yarn I chose (Orkide from Marks & Kattens) is soooo soft and beautiful and I just love the shaping and detail of the sweater itself. Here's a close up of the edge pattern and darts on the arm. Pretty, pretty!