Finished!

I finished Skelf yesterday.  Okay, technically I still need to block it and sew on buttons, but all the knitting is finished!  Yay me!  This is the first "grown-up" sweater I've completed.  I did make a top-down raglan when Spud and Chloe had their knit-a-long a couple of years ago, but this is my first REAL adult sweater.  Like with written out directions for each size and no math required.  It was terrific.  I love the pattern - Ysolda writes them so just about anyone can follow them.  The directions were very clear (even if I didn't read them very well the first time around).  I did add some to my project page, and will finish adding notes later.  Here are a few pictures before blocking:

My only problem now is where to block it?!  I have hardwood floors throughout my house, except the bedrooms, and I work during the day, so I have to block things either at night or early in the morning - when half the people in the house are sleeping.  Sometimes more, but at least half.  That leaves few possibilities.  First, there is the ironing board:

As you can see, it works GREAT for Little Man's sweater (now it's not scratchy).  The sleeves dangle, but I'm not as worried about them.  The problem for my sweater - it's wider than his.  This means that either a) I could only block half of it at a time, or b) it might stretch funny.  I can use a drying rack, one of those old wooden dowel zig-zag racks to cover it, but again, it might stretch funny from the spaces in between the dowels.  I would just go get some of those puzzle mats from the exercise section of a local big box store, but I really don't have even the $20 to spend at the moment (payday is Friday and we're watching our pennies for Christmas).  So, I have to decide how to block it.  In the meantime, Hubby helped me pick buttons for it and we decided on these:

Aren't they lovely?  They will add just a little sparkle to the top of the sweater.  I had planned on using these terrific ceramic buttons I found at an antiques mall, but after looking between those and these, these buttons won out.  Oh, and once Little Man's sweater is dry,

he's going to shine! :)  What are you working on?  Anything new?  Anything finished up?  It's going to be a great day, so let's get started with a lovely chat.