Told ya.

I thought it would go fast and it is... back is done, zooming up an arm now. I'm doing an arm instead of a front because I'm worried I'm going to run out of yarn, and I'd rather find out sooner than later. (A trick I learned from another blogger — if you do a back and an arm, then double the amount of yarn used and fudge in some for the collar/button bands (zipper in this case), you can see roughly how much yarn you'll need to finish a project.)

I did buy 13 balls (the pattern calls for 12 for my size) and I am using the specified yarn, for once. But I do think they tend to fudge the numbers for the larger sizes a bit, because I don't think they test knit in all sizes when a pattern is published. Only the mighty Sundara does that!

I made an interesting booboo, incidentally. I've been using Russian join, because this is thick, sticky yarn and I figured weaving the ends in would be a pain. (I'm planning on using an alternate, thinner/smoother yarn for seaming, so I don't get huge bulky seams.) But I wasn't thinking straight when I used it in the middle of the section where you drop stitches. Fortunately the join itself isn't quite in the middle of a dropped section, but it's right next to it and there is a segment of doubled-back-on-itself yarn acting as one of the dropped lines. This yarn is thick, but its self-adherence is weak, so if it gets caught on anything (common with dropped stitches) it may come apart. I can fix it if this happens, or run a duplicate piece of yarn through the area and nearby stitches, so I'm not that worried, but the look isn't as smooth as one might like. Next time I change yarns at the edge like a normal person if I'm gonna drop stitches!

I'm sick again this week — they think it's still the same sinus infection I got in October, and I'm on my third round of multiple antibiotics. But I'm starting to be well enough to knit, as you can see. (Hmm. Be nice if I could work, too... so I can buy more yarn...)