And we have....almost a sweater!

Well I've been knitting like crazy the last few days because I got excited to finally have the second half of the cardigan complete. And yesterday I did just that. Second half finished! So, I laid the pieces out on the carpet to make sure that when they were next to each other I'd have something that resembled the cardigan I'm aiming for:

Then of course, once I finished the two halves I had to jump right into grafting the two pieces together. I used the kitchener stitch to graft the pieces together, which for those of you that don't knit, is used to put the two pieces together in a way that looks just like the knitting so you can't see a seam or anything. It's usually used to close up the toes of socks. (or at least that's when I've used it before). 

Anyway I got the grafting and the seams done and I ended up with this:

Look it's almost a sweater! Woo! Now I just have to add the waistband and the front band with button holes and last but not least attach the buttons. I finally picked the buttons I want, and I picked these up at A.C. Moore:

I'm excited that this is really moving along! Hopefully by the end of today or tomorrow I'll have a new cardigan! Although I did try on the bit I have made already and sadly the shoulders are a bit tight, but at least the rest of it seems to fit. I might have been a little optimistic about my figure when I chose which size to make, but hopefully I can make this work since I put so much effort in. 

Another bit of motivation get moving on this project was that my package from knitpicks came in the mail and I want to hurry up and get to use my new yarn and needles. Look at all the goodies I got:

I'm most excited to get to use my interchangeable needle set, which will hopefully save me from having to buy needles every time I choose a new project. I also bought needles to make the skew socks using magic loop (hooray for learning a new technique!) and some pretty yarn for the socks as well (the blue/purple yarn above). 

Anyway that's all on the knitting front for now. Hopefully I'll have pictures of a complete cardigan to post here within the next day or so!