Shalom Sweater

I had this wool/nylon blend yarn that I bought a few years ago on sale at Jo-Ann's. I though it was gorgeous and I thought I might make a sweater out of it so I bought 7 balls. Last fall I decided I would make a sweater. I wasn't experienced at finding patterns and matching them to yarn but I found a simple sweater that called for 7 balls. I knit the front and the back of the pattern on size 5 needles, but as I finished the back, I found I had only one ball of yarn left and had not yet done the sleeves. I knew one ball would not do it, and the yarn was long gone from Jo-Ann's. It turned out the sleeve requirements were listed seperately. So I stuffed the front and back of the sweater in a drawer in the craft room until I figured out what to do with it. I moved on to knitting socks and other things.

This year I decided to try again at my first sweater with the boat neck pattern and by ordering the yarn based on the pattern not vice versa. The pattern has been slow going since it is on size 5 needles, but the front is finished and the back is about 20 rows away from being done too. However, I wanted something more interesting in my current knitting.

I found this pattern for a Shalom sweater on Ravelry. It is knit top down on larger needles with large yarn and so everyone who made it remarked about what a fast knit it was. I entered the yarn from last year's sweater into Ravelry and found that I would have plenty for this sweater. So I unravelled last year's unfinished sweater into two balls and began knitting on Saturday night. I've been knitting every free minute since and finished the sweater on Tuesday night.
Now for the details. I used size ten and a half needles. The only modification I made was to increase the number of stitches cast on after you bind off for the tops of the arm holes. I cast on an extra ten on each side. The pattern said that the sweater would be long, but I think my gage was running small because I did all 115 rows.

I'm very happy with it and look forward to wearing it after I wash it to even out some of the stitches.