WIP: Walpole Sweater (still!)

Silence for a solid 6 months again... but I have some very exciting news to share! I've been accepted to the economics PhD program at UMASS Amherst and will be moving out there in August. A wonderful side benefit of that is I will finally be able to visit the Webs warehouse :)

I wish I had more to show for the past 6 months, but I finally made some progress on an item that had been sitting in the bottom of my basket for a while.

I've been working on this sweater for over a year and a half now and I'm determined to finish it before the summer is over. There's really no excuse for how long it's been taking me... I had a whole winter of being snowed in to make some progress. Instead, I started and did not finish three other sweaters. 

The main thing that has been holding me back is how fine the yarn is. It just means hours of stockinette stitch with not much to switch it up. This past Monday, though, I finally finished the body of the sweater.

The yarn (Berroco Ultra Apaca) itself really is beautiful. It's a bit darker than the pictures show and has a very nice heather aspect to it. Even though this sweater is taking me forever, I know it will be super soft once it's done. 

Now that I've moved on to the sleeves I'm happier as the progress is a little more obvious. I'm also using the magic loop method. I claimed to hate it a couple years ago but I finally go the hang of it and it is so much quicker and easier than using DPNs. I found this tutorial helpful when I was learning.

I deviated from the pattern a bit and made the cuffs of the sleeves tighter. The pattern has very billowy sleeves and I couldn't see myself flapping around in huge cuffs.

I'm leaving for a trip to the West Coast including Oregon and Yosemite and am hoping to get the sleeves done during the plane rides and road trips.