Here it is!

It's done.  It's finally done.  The trim seemed to take FOREVER.  I suppose, looking at the dates of my posts, it did take a little over two weeks.  I would not have thought it would take that long.

For the trim, I basically knitted a long strip of fabric, 8 stitches across, stockinette stitch, for what felt like a million miles, to go around the front and neckline and the edges of both sleeves.  Stockinette curls up anyways, so it was forming itself into a tube, so I just sewed it shut and then sewed the tube along the edges.

(I do have a minor problem I'm trying to ignore, but I think I'm gonna end up having to fix it.  I didn't measure how long I made the tubes for the sleeves, I figured holding it up to the opening would mean I'd end up pretty much the same on both sides, but I didn't account for knitted fabric's irritating tendency to be entirely different shapes and sizes and different times.  As a result, one sleeve is smaller than the other.  It's not visible when I wear it, but I can feel that one armhole is tighter.  I can detach it and fix it, but it will be a pain.  so, for your reference, I strongly recommend making sure both sleeve pieces are the same size.  which should have been common sense.  sigh.)

The strip for the buttons on the front is the same thing.  sewed the buttons on one and did vertical buttonholes on the other.

Random detail note:  these buttons are smaller versions of the exact same ones I used on the front of my skirt for the rest of Rinoa's outfit so they'll match perfectly.


so there it is.  Took a little over a year, if you include the long hiatus I took.  Five months of real solid work.

It took about two skeins of yarn to do all the trim, plus the ends of other skeins that didn't quite get finished.  so I used almost exactly 19 skeins for this. 

Literally.  this picture I took immediately after finishing at work this morning.  This is the yarn I had left.





So I think I will organize my notes and put together a pattern of sorts for Ravelry, and then not knit again for a long time.