It's been a long, long time coming

But I finally finished my ruffled sweater!

It's been nearly done it was almost anti-climactic to put it on today, but I'm really happy how it turned out.

My last bright idea, in a project that contained many "bright ideas," was to add the cowl.  Of course I decided to do this after I'd finished the neckline.  So I made a separate, detachable cowl, and decided then that I liked this idea even better - now I can wear it both ways, because obviously no one would ever recognize this sweater, it's so unassuming and unrecognizable.

Sometimes I make my own head hurt.

The cowl is basted at from shoulder to shouldler seam in the back, left loose in the front.  That way I can rearrange it however I want, and, since it is only basted, I can remove it if I change my mind.

The sleeves are still my favorite part. I love the chevron effect, and while it wasn't intentional that the chevrons flow up one sleeve and down another (I think wine might have caused that little bit of inspiration), it works for me.  How can you look at this top and actually say that it shouldn't? 

Where's that particular rule?

What got me to finish up, finally?  Well, Saturday was PR Day - the official celebration of PatternReview's 10th anniversary, and there was a small get-together in Philadelphia.

Now whether you're a fan of Patternreview, Stitcher's Guild or Burdastyle, their intentions arethe same:  sewing is a pretty solitary obsession, and there's an enormous community out there if only someone could organize it and shove it in our face in a way that makes us recognize what we could have.

So thank you, Deepika, for Patternreview.  I joined in 2006, oblivious to what the site would add to my sewing (and personal) life within the next 5 years.  Now most of my friends also sew - and some of them even live in the same general vicinity.  I got to see them on Saturday, and a few "locals" I hadn't met before.  It's always good to enlarge the sewing circle, and when I got home, I was so inspired just by a few hours of shopping and lunch that I had to tack on my cowl and hem the sweater.

What's that you ask?

A few hours of shopping?

And you want to know if I bought anything?

Why yes.  Yes, I did. 

Photos are forthcoming (most fabric is still in the laundry basket), but I got 2 different colors of a very nice washable linen, one of which was a light grayish blue color that I looked for without success all summer.  The other is a sage-ish green.  I got a flannel print that manages to not look childish or mannish; I think it wants to be a shirt dress for my painfully cold office.  And I got a home dec fabric that I'm absolutely in love with - it's ivory with very cool, neutral wintry tree branches in grays, browns and tans.  I walked in the store, spotted that almost at the back, and went right for it.  It was too expensive, and I didn't care.  So there.