I've had it mostly finished for a while, but then I couldn't manage to block it because my sink was always too full of dirty dishes. But yesterday I finally got all the dishes cleared (major triumph), and then filled a clean pot with lukewarm water, soaked the sweater, gently squeezed most of the water out, wrapped it in a towel, squeezed out more water, and then pinned it out on my blocking squares.
For the non-yarnophiles, I should perhaps explain. Blocking is a magical process. You can add inches to the arms (because like me, you read the pattern wrong and skipped ten rows there). You can stretch out the colorwork on the wrists (because, like me, you forgot to switch to a larger needle for the colorwork sections, and so they ended up much tighter and more compressed than the rest of the arms, creating a sharp bell shape). All of the little cut ends on the inside that you've woven in get much more firmly locked in place as the wet yarn dries. The yarn overall softens a bit, giving a more finished and comfortable feel to the piece. And just in general, you end up with a more solidly knitted piece. I love blocking.
Once it's dry (will probably take a day or two), there's just the colorwork in the collar to finish, and it'll be all done. My first stranded colorwork piece! I like it.
Why do you need a larger needle for the colorwork areas? Is it a different yarn? (Just curious.) Congrats on (nearly) finishing the sweater!
Apparently, people just tend to have their knitting tighten up a lot more there, I’m guessing because you’re switching from yarn to yarn? My teacher warned me of that, but I didn’t have larger needles with me, and I thought, oh, that won’t happen to me, and then it did. 🙂 But blocking seems to have mostly fixed it, thankfully.