Crop sweaters are NOT only worn by farmers!

This is the "Shrug This" pattern from one of the One Skein books, can't remember which one, sorry! I read almost every project on Ravelry to get some good perspective BEFORE I started knitting...how crazy is that?! According to the masses, this was teensy if made according to the pattern, which stands to reason--one skein is just not going to cover this big body! This is also one of the few things I've ever knit for myself! I remember reading that it took about 3 hours for a fast knitter, so my status as a knitting turtle is firmly cast now. I used double strands of Royal Silk Merino (lovely! such a soft hand!) and size 13 needles and cast on double--yeah, that's right, twice the stitches. This turned out to be too many at the top of the sleeves, but one night while I couldn't sleep, which is when I do my best thinking, I came up with the double drawstring through the top edge and it really worked out well! You can draw up just the sleeves or the whole thing, or you can take up all the slack and use it as more of a wrap--it just made it really versatile. And I didn't follow the row indications, because I'm rangy and long as well as wide! I knit until I could put my arm through and not look like I had a blood pressure cuff on at full pump. Then I knit until I had no more yarn. Luckily, it turned out just right and I LOVE IT! It's PURTY!!! And soft. : )

And I know there is a tradition of intentionally putting a mistake in hand-made knits to authenticate them. You may notice I am fully devoted to keeping this tradition alive.