A sweater tale...

Pattern: Sweatshirt Jacket by Dawn Brocco Knitwear Designs

Yarn: My spindle-spun homespun (approx 1100 yards) - Lilac Shetland wool (trim & stripes), Natural-colored Black Welsh Mountain wool (top of sweater and sleeves), Natural-colored mystery eBay wool from a sheep named Nefertiti (bottom of sweater and sleeves)

Spindles: Anne Grout acorn support spindle (for singles) and Kundert top whorl drop spindle (for plying)

Needles: 29"? Boye aluminum circulars - size 8 (not my usual needles, but worked perfectly for this.

Things I changed: Kept to stockinette throughout rather than the patterning on the upper body. My homespun was too thick for the pattern stitch. This change in pattern meant, however, that I needed less yarn than I would have needed.
Knit the sleeves cuff up rather than picking up stitches and knitting down. This was to better utilize the remaining light brown yarn.

Started spinning: Around May 7, 2006
Finished (putting in the zipper): September 3, 2006 (this was about two months earlier than I originally estimated)

Would I knit it again? I rarely repeat patterns but I really like how this turned out. I wouldn't mind doing it again with the recommended yarn so it can be done to pattern.

Recap:
Marina helped kick-start this project by mentioning that she'd never seen someone spin enough for a sweater. I took that as a challenge and decided that not only would I spin it, I'd spindle-spin it instead of using my wheel. Thanks, Marina! This is the first time I've spun enough of any one thing to make an entire garment.

I also (rather unwisely) decided to knit as I spun each skein, instead of spinning up all of the roving and then starting to knit. This lead to some interesting times when I started running out of my original roving (that's why it's three colors instead of two).

It has been an adventure - now I've got two pounds of Romney-cross unprocessed white fleece waiting for my next spinning and knitting foray - maybe a lace shawl? Who knows....