What Does it Take to Make a Sweater: Knitting Edition

 Here is the sweater I have been working on.  

This is my "sweater from scratch" even though I didn't actually shear/spin/dye the yarn I am knitting this out of.  The pattern is "Grown Up Hoodie" by Kira Dulaney (Rav Link here)

I should have been showing my sweater progress in stages.  I showed you the swatches here and one sleeve here.

But then I knit the waist band, the body, the other sleeve, the shoulders and now I am on the hood.  And this is what it looks like.

Still a lot of strings attached.  And the hood is only partially done so it looks like I have a pin head.

Here it is from the back

See the cool pattern on the back?  If you can't, that's because I was supposed to knit the whole thing purl-side-out so you could see the cabling better.  But I didn't.  Oops.

If you think it looks a little small, you are, regrettably, partially correct.  It still needs the rest of the hood and the button band down the length of the whole front on both sides.  But yes, it is still about a half inch too tight and an inch and a half shorter than I would really like.  

I am going to wash and block in before picking up stitches for the button band to see if that does anything helpful (I think I remember from swatching that it will grow a little bit), but may still unpick the cast on edge to add a couple of inches.  And never, ever wear a bra with this sweater so that it will fit across my chest.  Because I am damn well going to wear this first-knit sweater.