"The Hardest Button to Button"...whatever that means.

Well, a milestone for me in knitting. My first adult size sweater. This has been a learning experience for me, and I've watched plenty of youtube tutorials for it, but very excited to have it blocked and the sleeves set in.

My man trying out his new sweater on a beautiful fall day in Gamla Stan, Stockholm.

I had a minor panic attack when I realized AFTER I blocked the pieces that the sleeves were 4 inches too long! They were the proper gauge, the body all measured out, I followed the pattern to a T, and even charted my progress so the sleeve increases and decreases would be identical...I don't know. After reading tip after tip, and forum after forum on ravely.com I decided that I would frog 3.5 inches from the under arm down and reknit with new yarn the shoulder cap from that point, (luckily I had extra). I lightly blocked the newly knit shoulder cap and everything measured out perfectly according to the specified chart. My first sweater avoided catastrophe, but just narrowly.

Button hunting turned out a little more challenging than I thought, the first store I went to was closed, and the local craft store, Panduro, had packets of colorful 'crafty' buttons. Ugh. Lucky for me that day I had to buy a snow suit for my son, and call it fate but I just happened to pass by Mattssons Band, on Kungsgatan. I took a double take and couldn't believe my eyes. It's one of those stores that is an interior designers dream, with more trims and fringes that you could ever imagine, and never even wish to buy in the States without an designer purchasing them from their showrooms only accessible to the trade. Not to mention the wide variety of beautiful buttons. Sadly these kind of stores are disappearing. Walking in there was like stepping back in time, 100 years in time.

So, here it is. Hopefully one of several more to come.