40 ROCKS!

So, for my 40th birdday I got some money-and of COURSE I wanted to spend some on YARN!  I've been wanting to make this sweater for the longest time, and decided the time has come.

I don't like necks that touch my neck though-I'm very very particular about that-I get a feeling of being strangled...so of course I was stressing over how to modify the pattern to avoid that entirely.  Many awesome Ravelers came to my aid and offered up some advice and I'm going to be implementing some short rows in the back between the colorworked sections...

Whilst waiting for my yarn to arrive I played with different color combinations-using photoshop to help my eyes get their thirst for a visual quenched...I'm happy with the combo I have picked and now for the fun stuff!  THE KNITTING!


My poor postman must think I'm insane.  He is so sweet to run all the way down my driveway to bring me packages-he actually waits for me to answer (not like that stinky UPS guy who just chcuks stuff at the door and all I see of him as I open the door is his backside jumping back into the truck).  I saw that box and just about lost it yesterday!  I do believe I even jumped up and down...may have screamed a bit too!

The next day:  I finished up the ribbing, colorwork and a bit more-I stressed about my gauge a little-I thought I was spot on at first but then realized it was getting 16 stitches instead of 18 for every 10cm...but I'm not going to sweat it.  I wanted this sweater to be a little roomy and I chose a small-I normally like a medium when I want roomy-so I'm going with it.  It looks lovely!  The yarn is scratchy-but not nearly as scratchy as I thought it would be!

12-22-15:  Merry almost Christmas!! In between making oodles of Christmas cookies, finishing some last minute gifts, wrapping all the presents (haven't yet broken my vow to always wrap as soon as I bring the gift home), a few little trips to the post office, I have managed to make a good deal of progress on my sweater. I have taken a few hours of the last few days to watch a movie each day with my daughter (The Hobbit movies-we always do a LOTR marathon on New Year's Eve, so we wanted to get ready) so I pounded out quite a bit watching the hobbits and dwarfs hunting down Smaug...Now I'm wondering why the plural of dwarf is dwarfs and not dwarves?

My modifications to this pattern are below...Please refer to the actual Afmaeli pattern, as I am only posting my notes on how I modified it slightly to accommodate for my neck issues... Please note that the ds refers to a double stitch as for German Short Rows-you can easily wrap and turn instead if you prefer. 

I use a 3.5 needle throughout-I tend to knit looser and it wound up working well for me that way...

During the yoke portion I used some short rows in this manner:

for round 1:  K80 (I made an adult small-you will have a different count on a different size-I think I was about five stitches from the center) PM, turn, ds, p 224 PM, turn, ds, k to beginning.

then I skipped row 4 and continued with round 5, kept going until round 15...
round 15, k to 3 stitches before SM, turn, ds, p to 3 stitches before SM, turn, ds, k to beginning and then go to round 18...

keep going until you reach round 31-k to 8 stitches before SM, turn, ds, p to 8 stitches before SM, turn, ds, k to end and start with round 33.

Row 42: k to 11 stitches before SM,turn, ds, p to 11 stitches before SM, turn, ds, k to end and then start with round 44.

for the neckband I omitted all of the decreases that it tells you to do.  I only did 3 cm of ribbing.  Also, I switched up the coloring-I wanted to see more of that lovely blue so I made sure I chose blue for the larger portion of the color chart-I also added one round of all black to give it a finished look before starting on the ribbed portion-SO happy with it!