Best F.O. EVER!!

This here is without a doubt my best knitted garment (that is not a sock or wrist warmer, which is incidentally a bizarre item indeed, and caused the DRMC to say that I looked liked 'the Artful Dodger', but let's move on) ever. The Klaralund is a perfect example of a project that you grow so sick of, you put it away far out of sight, even though you only have--get this--5 inches of one sleeve to finish. Yes, this was my Knitting Olympics project, and you'll notice that I proudly display the Gold medal nowhere on my blog!! In any case, a few weeks ago I decided to pick this baby back up and knock it out.

Now, I cannot take all the credit, as my best pal Babs' mom, Big Babs, did the finishing on it....yes, you knew there had to be a catch somewhere, right? She did a phenomenal job. I went over to knit with the two Babses, who are the most fun knitters anywhere to hang out with--you enjoy their conversation so much that you forget you have a family and stay for hours and hours, and also to have her show me proper finishing techniques. Now, most people who know me will say 'Oh, right, once again trying to manipulate others with abusive emotional passive/agressive techniques into doing things for her', but I SWEAR that my primary aim was for her to show me, which she did...and then she offered to do it for me....and I am very, very happy with the end result and thank her again for her lovely work that is allowing me to sport my Klaralund with pride. Thanks Bib Babs ! And thanks Little Babs for lending her to me!;)
I did it out of Noro Silk Garden #84, which is a beautiful yarn. My only complaint about this pattern is that the errata sheet contains some pretty serious modifications, like, you need about 4 more balls of yarn than the pattern calls for. After I busted a** trying to obtain the same colorway, dye lot, etc., I finished the sweater only to discover that I had 5 balls of yarn left over. I have found that patterns tend to overstate the amount of yarn needed, or maybe I am a tight knitter. In any case I am very happy with my Klaralund as it is the perfect combination of japanese-swedish ingenuity!
This 9 month delaying technique was sort of perfect in that it allowed me to experience the thrill of finishing something with only a 1/2 day's worth of toil. Picking it up again makes me wonder what my problem was in the first place. I have a lot of projects in the delayed finishing queue, waiting to experience the last several hours of work that will transform them...Green Gable, there's hope for you yet!