Finally finished: the Cabled Raglan Baby Sweater

I have way too many nearly finished projects. One of my recent goals has been to start knocking these out, and this sweater was high on the list.

This sweater was started about 2.5 years ago (I know, I know). It was intended to be one of two. One of my good friends from graduate school has twin girls, and they were nearing their first birthday. I found this free pattern through Interweave Knits, and was immediately smitten. I love the sweet simplicity of it, and the twins' mom had recently commented about how impossible it is to keep the long sleeves of most sweaters clean when babies are eating. The pattern also uses a couple of additional techniques I'd been wanting to try: top-down knitting and real cables (I'd only used mock cables in previous projects).

The pattern called for baby alpaca yarn, but since I prefer using more easily washable yarns for baby projects (I can't imagine a new mom wanting to spend any time hand washing baby clothes), I found a machine washable merino wool on Knit Picks. This yarn was great to work with. It was super soft, and the color of the un-dyed version was exactly what I had in mind for this sweater.

This project taught me that I love knitting cables. I become a bit giddy on rows where I get to actually make the twists. I also found that I love love LOVE top-down knitting with raglan sleeves. The actual finishing steps of knitting projects always hold me up (more on that in a moment), so not having to sew the sleeves on at the end of the project is pretty exciting. Somehow it felt a little more organic to have the entire sweater come together at once, rather than in pieces.

Eventually I realized the sweaters weren't going to be done in time, and the project lost the sense of urgency it originally had. Once I finished knitting, the sweater was tucked away for awhile. As I already mentioned, I haven't exactly learned to appreciate the process of finishing - especially when it comes to weaving in ends and blocking. This project has been haunting me ever since.

Over the last week, I finally took care of the finishing touches. I still like the pattern, and I highly recommend it for beginners looking to try sweaters or top-down knitting. All that stockinette stitch does show mistakes a bit more readily though (looking at it a couple years after working on it, I noticed a few twisted stitches and gaps where yarn was joined). The washable merino blocked beautifully, though I haven't seen how it actually holds up to machine washing. My friend's twins are obviously a little big for it now, but I'll hang onto it until the next time a friend has a baby girl!

Do you have any nearly finished objects? Are there particular steps that always hold you up?