Finished finished finished

As the Knitmore Girls say, there are levels of finishing.  Finished is finished the knitting.  I have been there for a week.  Finished finished is blocked and ends woven in.  Finished finished finished is buttons on and ready to wear.  

My grey Shalom full sleeved sweater is now finished finished finished, 

and I am wearing it at this very moment.   I love the way it worked out and can see me knitting another one someday.  Possibly soon!

Because you can never have too much Shalom in life. 

"Shalom (Hebrew: שָׁלוֹם‬ shalom; also spelled as sholom, sholem, sholoim, shulem) is a Hebrew word meaning peace, harmony, wholeness, completeness, prosperity, welfare and tranquility and can be used idiomatically to mean both hello and goodbye."

Peace.  Harmony.  Wholeness.  Completeness.  Prosperity.  Welfare.  Tranquility.  It describes how I feel most of the time and I am not so sure that I can say I ever noticed or acknowledged it in this same way before.  

If I was to do it again at this gauge, I would cast on exactly this number of stitches at the neck.  It fits exactly right.  Not too close, not too loose.  I would however, put another set of increases for 10 more stitches before separating for the underarms.  I knew once I started the sleeves that they would be a little tighter than I like.  The surprise, was that I would have liked those 10 extra stitches even on the body of the sweater.  And for the life of me, I have no idea why I didn't calculate that.  I have become much more comfortable, much more likely to trust the math, but I still appear to fully ok with completely ignoring it.  

The sweater is a keeper.  I love that it pullover rather than actually being a cardigan. It is so much less fussy for wearing all day at home.  For all that the fit is a bit closer than I prefer, it is going to be great to wear as the under sweater for my outdoor layers.  

In the dark times, before I knit, I used to dream of sweaters that were exactly what I wanted and that were comfortable to wear.  With knitting, I get that, every single time.