Bit o' Sunshine

"Sunshine. . . on my shoulders. . .
makes me happy. . ."
--John Denver (or Kermit the Frog)

You'll understand by the end of this post.

When last we left our heroine. . .

I was singing the praises of yarn substitution. I've decided in the meantime that substituting the recommended yarn is indicative of a latent social deviance, despite the knitter's attempts to hide or disavow it. Anyone who substitutes must have a touch of antisocial personality disorder to them, including myself.

At any rate, Tuesday's weather was positively heinous, all rainy and cold, both of which worsened as the day progressed. And I wore little sandals to work, which made it all the worse. I came home and threw myself into knitting a warm, winter-ish sweater with (still more) leftover yarn from the Knitting Olympics project that never was, and decided I was sick to death of blue. Scrounging through the stash of patterns I've acquired, I found the perfect sweater. And I know just the color it needs! What inspiration! Off to the LYS we go. . .

And Simply Marilyn is born.
















And then the batteries in my camera died. But I was a Woman Possessed, and kept on knitting, only to buy batteries yesterday at the grocery. I almost missed it--


I was nearly finished with the thing before I got another shot. I didn't think I would progress this quickly; I did my homework and saw quite a few bloggers who loved the pattern, but it never stayed on their shoulders. I read how the masses of knitters knit, frogged, re-knit (take this in a few cases to the nth power), and then said, %^#* it all, I'm making my own neckline!! And I admit, I was a little scared. So, for perhaps the first time ever, I adhered to every stitch in that pattern. . . just to see if it really was that bad. . .









(A close-up of progress on the neckline.)













And guess what? It wasn't!

As usual, the sleeves are a bit short, but, well, what can ya do. . .?

The only modification I made to the pattern was not seaming the neck all the way--I did about half, maybe a little less, to give it a slightly asymmetrical look.



























So here it is, the perfect sweater for sucky weather when you can't wait for pretty spring, in the color of sunshine. So even when it's blustery and rainy, you are warm (with this collar, trust me) and happy (with sunshine on your shoulders!).