Shades of Gray

A long, long time ago…

I can still remember how that music used to make me smile.

Whoops!  Off track.  Let me start this again.

A long, long time ago…

I posted out of pure excitement that I was about to begin a sweater project for myself.  The pattern was named Paulie <—Ravelry link (need an account).

Well, it is done and I have the finished photos for you today, my friends!

And that’s the last picture of my head you’ll see.  Taking pictures of your own project while wearing it isn’t an easy thing to do.

I have more pictures posted to my Ravelry project page along with a few pattern notes.

The reason why I named this puppy Shades of Gray is because I had the hardest time getting a matching skein of the gray yarn.  I made the medium size and ordered enough yarn according to the pattern directions, which for the kind of yarn I chose ended up being 2 skeins.  I was WAY short of having enough to finish, so I ended up ordering from 2 different vendors in an attempt to find a somewhat close color match and then sending one super-different looking skein back.  I love hand-dyed yarns, but they can be difficult to match, so it’s good to buy more than you think you’ll need so the skeins can be best matched from the get-go.  The difference in colors in my sweater is noticeable, but it isn’t that dramatic.  A person would have to be looking for it to see it, I think.  In the end, I really didn’t care too much, because I made it and I’m the one who has to (gets to) wear it. 

I would love to make another one of these someday – but DANG! – the yarn gets expensive, yo!  When it was all said and done I spent about $85 on the yarn, $6 on the needles, $2 on the buttons, and I guess even more for the shipping plus return shipping of the off-color skein.  AND, I got to spend months knitting it!  WIN!

But seriously, it was fun, and when you consider knitting as a hobby, you don’t look at it in purely economical terms.  I mean, buying a cardigan at Kohl’s for $10 would be cheaper, yes, but knitting is an enjoyable process for me and I got to make it just the way I wanted it.