She's A Lady!

My February Lady Sweater was finished on May 1st, just in time to wear to Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival the next day. I finished it (sewed on buttons and wove in the ends at the hotel in Maryland) on Friday night. Everyone knitting in the lobby of the hotel made me model it, and of course, this made me feel extremely self conscious. I'm not exactly happy with my body image. I feel incredibly uncomfortable in my own skin lately. Probably because I have never, ever, weighed this much in my entire life. Not even pregnant. YUCK.
But I will say this. A lot of people stopped and checked out my sweater at Maryland. I got a lot of nice compliments, and I was forever grateful. But again, I could see that many people were staring at me (really uncomfortable, but they were actually staring at the sweater), but they were all polite. One very sweet lady at Tess's booth gave me a discerning eye, and I thought to myself, oh boy, here it comes, a nasty criticism (I always have a positive outlook), and she said something that made me cry. She said, "I've seen a lot of people knit those sweaters, but your sweater is the nicest one I've ever seen." And then she petted it, and smiled. I felt like crying with gratitude. This is my first adult-sized sweater. I've knit for my children and for my nieces and nephews. Never any sweaters for me. I felt like a queen after her compliment. I don't consider myself a talented knitter, but her kind words made me have more confidence in my knitting. Maybe now I will try different and harder things. This sweater, although not hard to knit, was a challenge for me. Mostly I was afraid that it wouldn't fit, and bottom line, I was scared to model it for all of you.
So without further ado - some pictures of the finished FLS. These photos were taken by my youngest daughter. I couldn't pin down the hubby long enough to photograph me with his fabulous camera. So, the Kodak Easy Share it was.

Finished sweater - a bit dark here, and oh, sorry about the flip flop in the bottom half of the picture - I thought I had cropped that out.

A close up of the buttons (somewhat blurry, but color of the yarn is pretty close).

And finally, a picture of how it fits. It's a comfortable, soft sweater. Just perfect for church today, when it was a bit breezy and cold.

Stats:
February Lady Sweater - cast on in February, 2009
Finished May 1, 2009.
A little over 3 skeins of STR Heavyweight in Thraven colorway.
Size made - Large, but I did not have gauge, so I suspect it's more of a medium size. When, not if, I knit this again with a worsted weight wool, I will definitely knit the medium size.
PS - This sweater grew a lot in length with blocking!
PS #2 - Thanks for all the support from all of your blog folks. You are the best at with all your encouragement!