My First Sweater!!!

I'm so excited to have my first sweater!!!  I found a simple pattern from Lion Brand that looked easy enough to put together.  I just have to make a large square, fold it, and seam the edges together.  This project is like a practice run for another sweater that I want to make with some really nice Alpaca yarn that I received for Christmas.

The yarn used in this project is Lion Brand Homespun. I stood in Michael's for 20 minutes looking at all the color options that had at least 4 balls available.  I finally chose Waterfall because I like the purple and grey mixed in the blue and I figured it would go with the clothes I usually wear.

The Homespun is a little hard to work with since it's the first time I'm working with a "bobbly" yarn as I've been calling it.  The ch85 was hard to count if I stopped and forgot how many I had made, so I had to take it out and do all 85 at once so that I wouldn't have to try and count it.  Even going back and doing the first row of sc was tedious making sure to get each individual ch.  I counted again as I did the first row to make sure I had 84 sc.  From there you're just working in the back loop, sc, back and forth until you get the length needed.  The picture below is two skeins into the project.  It measures 42 inches across (the original chain), and 20 inches tall.  The pattern says to work until it measures about 38 inches, so I'm about half way!

In searching the Internet for the perfect pattern for my alpaca sweater, I came across a blog post about this pattern that I'm making now. The girl has awesome step-by-step instructions, suggestions for getting a perfect fit for yourself, and an optional collar. You can find her post here.  I'm still going to follow the regular directions and see what I get. I was planning on connecting the final project with stitch markers before connecting the sides so I will know if I need to take it out or change anything. One difference is that I used the same yarn as the pattern, so I'm hoping the measurements are all fine.

I actually haven't decided which direction I want to connect it.  The directions have you seaming the 42 inch sides together, which gives horizontal stripes in the front and vertical stripes down the back.  I was thinking of folding it the opposite way, but we'll have to see when I get there.

So I completed the length requirement with 3 skeins of the Homespun yarn. Since I didn't know which way I wanted to connect it I just used stitch markers every 2 inches and tried it on to see what it looks like. And I hate it :( The style looks terrible on me, but I'm glad I found that out on this yarn before I used the other stuff.  It's possible that I didn't like it because of the bulkiness of the finished product.

There are other sweater patterns that I've wanted to try, so I'll just have to find a style that works for me.  As for this yarn the plan is to pull it apart since I never worked in my ends and find something else to make, like a nice fuzzy scarf and some matching accessories!

***Update***
After I posted, I told John I was just going to take it apart.  He said I shouldn't undo all the time I'd put in.  So the new plan is to take out the stitch markers (of course), maybe add a few more rows, put a nice edging around all sides and call it a baby blanket!  I'll post a photo when I'm done! :)