Finished: Sweater!

i am so excited to present to you: my first sweater!begun in early june and completed earlier today, this Classic Elite Wide Rib Hoodie is making me even more anxious for autumn weather! Using Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece in Candy Apple, i happily toiled over this sweater, and made it my own.i made the body and sleeves longer than called for. i added ribbing at the base of the sleeves (because really, just doing faggot stitch on a smaller needle didn't look as great as i wanted it to, so i carried over the wide rib), and in attempting to pick up the 314 stitches that comprise the outer rib, i only managed to get a total of 239 (picking up only bars, not bumps, the bumps looked stupid and cramped).
so with the help of my wonderfully math-minded best friend, Anna, i figured out how many stitches i needed for each section (broken into left and right sides, and hood), and how i could space them evenly around. the next round after making those stitches, they were knit through the back loop to make them lie flat.

i have to extend a hearty thanks to anna for her math that saved the final stage of the project, to joy, colleen, cassy, and sarah jo, for telling me that i definitely could make a sweater, that it wasn't as scary as i thought it would be, for helping me figure out my what size to make, how to modify this pattern to my desires, and for the fantastic and inspiring work-environment, to chris for his encouragement and interest in what i was doing, to gayle for her excitement to see it all finished up, to dad for playing ps3 with me when i needed a break back home, and to my mother for blocking all the pieces and her sage advice about knitting calmly. thank you all, for all your help, i am so lucky to have this support from all of you!