Holy cats, readers. I am finally finishing a sweater I started in, oh, 2008. Here it is, languishing on the blocking board without a care like it always knew I would come back to it.

There were a few issues along the way.

First, I had never used moss stitch. It’s not hard. It’s like seed stitch’s taller sister. For some reason each piece came out really diagonal. I don’t know if this is just a characteristic of moss stitch, but I’m hoping it will all go away with blocking. I did some vigorous squishing of the yarn to get it mostly flat.

Next, I ran out of yarn. I don’t know what possessed me to fervently believe that 800 yards of Berocco Ultra Alpaca would make the smallest size. I’m a hopeless optimist. The lesson learned there is when purchasing vacation yarn that might become a sweater without the actual sweater in mind, always err on the side of too much. I was doing the sleeves two-at-a-time and realized that I would run out before I got to the shoulder shaping. Instead of facing up to this fact immediately, I shoved the cardigan in my UFO piles for a few years. Denial. Complete denial.

I got it out again in 2010 and decided I would try to find more yarn. Of course, I didn’t have the ball bands so I had no idea of the dyelot. The color is Yucca Mix. Luckily, Berocco seems to be pretty consistent. I don’t notice the change in the sleeve caps when the yarn is dry, and only slightly so when it’s wet. It looked close enough to the dye lot that I had so I didn’t even bother striping. Yeah, I’m that kind of knitting renegade.

I’m not a fan of really cropped stuff and I’m already long-waisted, so I know I added a couple of inches to the length. Had I not done this, I probably would have had plenty for the sleeve caps. So if you’re feeling ballsy, go ahead and make a 34″ size out of only 800 yards. I dare you.

Now, let’s see how long it takes me to sew this.