It was a pleasure to have everyone here. I think this blog really helped to start a trend. I hope I'll be able to do something like this again in the future.

Yay! I'm so happy to be finished. This was by far the most challenging project I've worked on, all because of those silly darts. But the finished product is worth it, it garnered many oohs and aahs at the LYS stitch n bitch this week. Thanks to everyone who posted their progress and hints here, it was a huge help to be able to look through the archives to see what you all had done.

I've finished, after a concentrated spell of knitting while watching tv. I'm the model in the pic but Audrey is in the mail to my daughter Audrey who has longer arms and is less than half my age. She wanted the neckline to be around the shoulders. I made the medium size with 20 repeats of the lace pattern. Thanks to everyone for the helpful info. The colour is Calmer and is a touch greener than it appears on my screen. It is a very gentle colour and quite lovely.

Yes, I *always* wear Audrey when reading my daughter Disney princess stories at bedtime! ;-) As much as I hated the decreases in the pattern, I really do love the finished product. It was all worth it in the end. I think the sweater is a bit distracting to my husband, as every single photo he took outside was awful, and when I made him take a few more photos inside tonight he was only marginally better. Still, he loves the sweater and as you can see we had a good laugh!

Here's a photo of the finished back, unblocked

And here's a detail of the sleeve decrease

Left side decreases

Left side increases

I've finished back and front, and with help from all you girls, I got through that without tears. I'm almost finished with first sleeve and it looks good, but it's awfully long!? But I suppose it has too be since it reaches over the shoulder...?

I wasn't able to upload any photos, I'll give it another try later. You can see some photos on my blog:
http://katarinawiberg.blogdrive.com

Last night I finished knitting the back and stopped right after the last set of increases. I think something funky is going on, and before I knit anymore I thought I'd run it by everyone here (if there is anyone still here).

Here's my photo: the first shot is the decreases at the bottom of the sweater (size large), and the top photo is the increases.

My dilemma(s): in the top photo at the #1, you can see the first decrease, which left me with a single column of purl stitches. At the #2, you can see where my last set of decreases left me with a column of three knit stitches. And all of this has led to my having at #3 (starting at the panel of three knit stitches and going to the left), k3, p2, k2, p2, k2, p1, k2.

Is this incorrect? I'm all about ripping it back and starting over with the decreases if I need to, but I think my fear is that I'll do it all over again the same way. I don't think I can tell where exactly I made my mistake. Can anyone else see where I went wrong? (If it's difficult to see, you can check out a larger photo over at my blog).

Well folks, I no longer have to feel guilty about not finishing the project for the knit-a-long that I hosted. Here she is, my Audrey in Night Sky (a color Rowan discontinued last year).

I made the small size and pretty much followed the instructions to the letter. I did 18 lace pattern repeats for the neckline -- originally I had 19, but that made for too much gapping at the neck, so I ripped it out, removed a repeat and put it all back in place. Now I'm much happier and have a sweater I can actually wear to work.

One word about the application of the lace. It puzzled me a great deal the first time I did it, and then I got an excellent recommendation from an excellent rabbit as to how to think about the problem.

At least for the small sized garment, the back and front contribute about twice as much length to the perimter of the top opening as do the sleeves. This means that we can do a little basic algebra to get where we need to go:

sleeve top distance = x
back and front distance = 2x

perimeter = 2(x + 2x) = 2(3X) = 6X

6X = 18 lace units so...

x = 3 lace units

now we can go back to the sleeve and the back and fronts...

sleeve top = x, so 3 lace units per sleeve top
back and front = 2x, so 6 lace units have to span each of those.

So when I pinned the lace down to the top, I just made sure that there were 6 lace units over the back, 3 over the first sleeve, 6 lace units over the front and 3 over the remaining sleeve.

For me, it all added up to a nice little victory dance and even a few nice compliments from my husband.

And now I can claim my very own label. Woohoo!

Chrisanthi hasn't had the chance to wear her yet; she writes: "I made her using a wool/alpaca blend on size 3mm needles. The weather here has been too hot to wear a sweater but they've forcast snow for the weekend."

Just so you all know, "here" is Greece for Chrisanthi. So we now have a Greek Audrey to add to our finished list!

As someone who is sitting amidst a great deal of snow, here's hoping that Chrisanthi got a little cool weather to enjoy her sweater in, but not too much snow.

There are now 40 (how impressive!) finishers. And the maps now look like this:

Here's an updated the map for the US:

create your own personalized map of the USA

And finally, here's the whole world of Audrey:

create your own visited country map

A big congratulations to Nancy (Virginia), Kate (Missouri), Elizabeth (Texas), and Heathre (New Zealand) Your labels will get into the mail next week. Here's the overall tally:

Alabama 1
California 5
Colorado 1
Connecticut 2
Florida 1
Illinois 1
Kentucky 1
Maryland 2
Massachusetts 1
Missouri 1
New Jersey 2
New York 1
Ohio 2
Oregon 1
Texas 3
Utah 1
Virginia 2

Canada 2
England 3
Finland 1
France 1
Germany 2
Japan 1
New Zealand 1

I made the Medium size in Pool with no alterations to the written instructions for lengths or increases/decreases, and it worked out wonderfully. I did 20 repeats for the neckline and really like how it lays on my shoulders. I have no complaints at all with how it fits, which certainly makes me happy! I have already been proudly walking around town today, and it feels good...

Now I can relax, knowing that the "Audrey 2004" label will be appropriate since I completed it before the end of the year.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Pardon the mock-dramatic pose - it was the best of the photos we took. I'm very pleased with how she turned out. Here are some thoughts/notes on the process:

1. I did 18 pattern repeats on the neckband. It turns out that for the size I knit (the small), the number of rows on the neckband and the stitches at the neck edge were about the same, so seaming the neckband to the body wasn't too hard. I used mattress stitch, catching the bottom knit stitch of the neckband and the top stitches of the ribbed body. I matched 3 pattern repeats to each sleeve, and 6 repeats apiece to the front and back.
2. I didn't block the sweater or the neckband, and I think it worked out fine.
3. I flipped over the sleeves when seaming the sweater together because I liked how the decreases on the sleeve cap looked on the "wrong side" better than on the "right side." (I got this idea from Froggy, incidentally).
4. I made the sleeve inseams an inch longer than the pattern called for, but wish I had knit them even longer. I wish I had made the body longer, too. But overall I'm happy with it. The Calmer is soooo soft and comfortable and even warm! Great to knit with and gorgeous to wear.

Thanks to everyone for a great knit-along.