Finished!

I finished my Austin Hoodie, and got the ribbon sewn on!  This is the Austin Hoodie pattern, which is written for fingering weight yarn knit at a very loose gauge.  I used Malabrigo Arroyo in Natural, a sportweight yarn (slightly heavier than fingering weight) and I'm really happy with the feel of the fabric.  

I also reversed the ribbing at the top of the sweater so there would be more knit stitches than purl stitches showing.  You still get the vertical lines of the ribbing, but it seems a little softer to me visually.

Finally, I wanted to reinforce the front edges with ribbon because front edges go through a lot on a cardigan.  I wasn't sure what ribbon I wanted to use and I lost track of how many I tried (let's just say that I've got more of a ribbon stash now than I did when I started), so instead of knitting the front bands on as I knit the sweater (which is what the pattern calls for), I decided to add them later in the traditional way.  Once I finally picked a ribbon, I knew how wide to make them.  The ribbon is from Kafka, a German company that makes gorgeous ribbons.  I found it from a place on Etsy.  It wasn't cheap, but it was what I wanted and since it will show in the hood and occasionally at the front, I wanted to be happy with it.

This pattern is knit from the bottom up, and for some reason that always seems to take forever, but I got it finished in time to submit to Eat.Sleep.Knit for the first quarter Craft-A-Long.  Next quarter, I will be doing a top down sweater, but I'll give you all the details later.