Finished!

I think this is the fastest that I've ever made anything. I bought the yarn April 5th and finished today. Woohoo! I really enjoyed this pattern - it wasn't too difficult to slow me down and it had enough of a pattern to keep me interested.

Yosemite is a knitty.com pattern (I love knitty). I started the project twice. The first time, the medium size sweater was working out to be huge, so I started over with the extra small. I did make some changes in the pattern:

1. I skipped the waist shaping that the pattern called for and instead I used a smaller needle (size 5) for about 6 inches in the middle to get the same effect. If I were to do it all over again, I would have started with the smaller needle sooner and maybe only use a size 6 needle.
2. I also changed the decreases in the sleeves by just a bit. Instead of K1, K2tog in the front of the row, I just did K2tog so that the first rib of the sleeve covered over the stitches. I made the similar change at the end of the row. I'm not entirely happy with the changes I made there, but I didn't feel the need to make it 'perfect'. I'm more excited about wearing it.
   

I love the shawl collar! I had to get out my knitting manual to figure out how to do the short rows and in the end I just had to figure out myself. Thankfully my mistakes are hidden underneath the collar! And, for the first time I think in my life, my knitting was too loose (on the short rows) instead of too tight.

Overall, I liked the pattern and would only caution anyone attempting it to carefully pick the size and re-evaluate after working 2 or 3 inches of the body.

It is not easy being a knitter during the winter when you live in the desert.
“Sweater envy” doesn’t begin to cover the torture.
The hats, the mittens, the afghans -- can a sister get some snow?
~ Andee Steinman, Yosemite pattern author