Good news, bad news.

What should I expect? After all, it IS Monday. The good news is that I finished Sylvi. And oh, what a beautiful sweater she is.

The bad news? Well, let's just put it this way. De Nile ain't just a river in Egypt. It seems that I've gained a wee bit of weight since I moved to Canada. My doctor and I had a discussion about that same weight, and agreed that I should lose a bit. So I'm trying. Unfortunately for me, not quickly enough. And probably won't be in the right places.

In any event, I did model her, just so I could show her off.

I got stitch gauge just fine, using my 6.0mm needles. Row gauge seems to be a bit off, though. The sweater is much shorter than pictured.
Also, the hood wasn't quite as tall as I would have liked; well, needed is a better word.

Look at the flower detail:
That's just gorgeous. The petals are added after everything else is knitted. Just pick up two stitches at the base, and away you go. Then you sew the petal down once you have completed knitting it.

I used 8 skeins of Araucania Nature Wool Chunky, colour number 105 which appears to be discontinued. I had calculated that I would need 10 balls, so apparently being off on row gauge made a huge difference.

If I were to make this design again, I would modify the pattern by working an edge stitch that is always slipped at the beginning of a row and knit at the end, and then a stitch that is always knit on the right side and purled on the wrong side. This would give me edges and a seam similar to that on Inggun, which I quite adored.

I'd also measure myself before I started, to be certain that I made the correct size.

I'm not going to frog this sweater. It's too beautiful. So here's the question -- do I give it to my daughter, my step-daughter or my daughter-in-law? They're all approximately the right size. Did I mention that I'm open to bribes?