Light as a Feather

Last week I finished my Featherweight Cardi, but it took me until Saturday to take pictures (many thanks to Chris who went with me to visit family so that we could take pictures on the beach and to my sister for making such lovely matching jewelry) and it has taken me until today to blog about it.  But lucky me, it happens to be FO [Finished Object] Friday (a not-so-distant relation to WIP Wednesday).

Back in August when I came home from Pittsburgh I helped my mom organize her stash into Ravelry.  In the midst of the various yarns she has collected over the past year of serious knitting was some beautiful Cascade Alpaca Lace.  As we photographed she asked me what she could use it for.  When I explained what laceweight is for and showed her my laceweight projects she laughed and handed them to me "I accidentially bought these. You take them"  Well you don't have to ask me twice.  Suddenly I was the proud owner of over 1,000 yards of laceweight alpaca in a lovely dark heathered red.  Question was, what would I knit with it?

Well, you know the rest of the story.  I started the sweater on the way to Dragon*Con and finished a month later in Austin, TX.  The body came out a little shorter than I wanted and the ribbing is definitely shorter than it should be (what I get for knitting until I think it looks good instead of constantly carrying a tape measurer).  But after my last experience with alpaca, I know that it stretches when blocked.  The sleeves were already perfect though and I couldn't [read: wouldn't] rip out the collar in order to lengthen the body.  I ended up blocking just the body of the sweater with a spray bottle and hoping that it would not effect the sleeves dimensions.  The result?

Perfection.