The Abominable Sweater

This was my first complex project. I've done scarves, a baby blanket, some mug cozies, but nothing that wasn't fairly 1 dimensional. I started off thinking i wanted a sweater that is very cozy, like a blanket. So I chose a very (very -) thick yarn. Did the whole thing in what turned out to be not the best of stitches for the yarn (half double crochet) , made a very stiff unyielding fabric from it. (as a side note, I've done another whole project with this same yarn since, using double crochet for most of it, and that is much more pliant). The completed project isn't as bad as I was worried it would be as I finished up each consecutive phase (attaching the sleeves to the body hid some rough edges which had a much bigger positive impact than I expected), however the sleeves are too tight and I can barely get my arms into them so it's not a sweater I will be wearing. I do think the ribbing on the cuffs of the sleeves is a cute touch. I was going to add some nicer edging all the way around the neck, down the fronts, and around the waist to neaten it up (it probably wouldn't look half bad if I did) but I opted out of using the extra yarn when I realized it's not really wearable.

Perhaps someday I will return to this one and redo the sleeves and make a nicer finished project but that day is not today. Today it is off to a box in storage so I don't have to look at it for a while!
I lost track of how many balls of yarn I used on this. I started off with 12 full skeins (totally bought out Walmart) and went back at least twice. Got maybe 5 more balls the second time, and maybe another 3 that I used from the last trip. A good 20 balls. This project felt like a fever dream every time I went back to the store and swept every skein from the shelf into my cart.