My First Sweater!

So guys I made a sweater! I used to think knitting a sweater looked like the hardest thing ever! Well it was hard but not impossible. I just wanted a simple crew neck style so I went in search for a pattern at ravelry.com. You guys should totally check them out for really cool patterns on pretty much anything you could think of. The only disadvantage is that sometimes there are so many options that it is hard to find the simplest of versions of the things you want to make. Eventually I did find a pattern for the Incredible Custom-Fit Raglan Sweater, the holy grail! You can find the pattern by clicking here! It is true just how the pattern says that the collar cast-on is the hardest part of the sweater and the rest comes easy. I had the hardest time with the collar and had to start over midway through the first time, which, me being a perfectionist, was the hardest thing for me. I am used to things coming easy to me so knitting this sweater was the perfect challenge! So as far as yarn goes you can pretty much use any yarn to knit a sweater. The weight of the yarn will determine the amount of time it will take to make your sweater and the size of your knitting needles. Luckily for me the yarn I picked, perfectly with the needles I already had the needles that I needed to match my gauge. I know in my previous post that I said I buy majority of my yarn from Beyond the Rainforest Yarn but for this project I went to Ewe to the Yarn instead. As far as needles go I used a pair Addi US 10.5 24" circular needles. When it comes to making a gauge swatch for this project DO IT!, the swatch is especially important when it comes to casting on for your collar to make sure the sweater can fit over your head. You're probably wondering what a swatch is. It is basically when you knit in significantly small piece of fabric in the pattern that you intend for your project to be in, usually a 4x4. After you complete the swatch and cast off then wash it and dry it. From there you measure the width in inches. The pattern you are following will usually tell you how to calculate the correct amount of stitches to cast on based off of this number(this pattern tells you). Blocking,which happens after you complete a project, is basically washing your sweater but you leave it out to dry. Before the drying process you are supposed to create the ideal proportions of your sweater(this is the time to fix any "mistakes"...MAGIC!) This sweater was a lot of fun to make but I am still open to easier methods, maybe the bottom up sweater where the sleeves are made separately and sewn on after the sweater is complete. If I try a different method I will definitely keep you guys posted!