Hoodie-lem

The last couple of times I have been to Germany (okay, every time I've been to Germany), I've gone on a yarn-buying extravaganza. It's new, it's exciting, and it's often very cheap. My German cousins are well aware (as is everyone that knows me) of my knitting obsession. So when we were there last Christmas, their Christmas gift to me was a big bag of yarn. Very clever, those Germans.
It's not actually a yarn I would have chosen myself, but it's good to expand the horizons. It's Schachenmayr nomotta (excellent German yarn brand) Bravo Baby, 100% acrylic sport weight yarn. I don't usually go for acrylic, but I'm not going to turn down free yarn. In the band it looked white with blue flecks, but the overall effect knitted up is a speckled light blue. My cousin bought me a bag full of yarn, specifically enough to make a sweater.
This was over Christmas. I'm going back next week. Therefore, I had to have something completed in that yarn. It had to be for myself since it was a Christmas gift, and I don't really knit for myself that much. It also had to be a sweater, since that was the amount she had insisted on buying.
I pored over pattern books. I considered designing my own. I ran from that idea and went back to pattern books. I scoured the internet. I had to find a pattern that fit this small gauge and still looked good in a varigated yarn. After much frustration, I found myself back at my favorite knitting book, Stitch 'n Bitch, looking at a sweater I had planned to make at some point anyway. It's called Under the Hoodie, and it's shown in the book in mohair with red and pink stripes. It's cute in that pattern, but luckily I saw the basic shape and realized there is nothing more comfortable than a hoodie.
The gauge was perfect, and it fits really well (see what happens when you do go check the gauge?). The hem wants to roll on me, I want to block it into submission, but it's acrylic. But then, it's a hoodie, so I don't think a little roll on the hem is going to bother me too much when I'm in a hoodie kind of mood.
It's a lot of stockinette. It's a whole lot of stockinette, and most of the sweater is a really basic shape. The pocket and hood, both new to me, were pretty fun to knit though. The pocket was picked up at the bottom and knit together into a row at its top. The hood just kind of continued from the neck, with a really cute pattern at the neckline, and ended in a three-needle bind off. Even the ribbing at the edges is really cute, because it's a broken rib pattern that minimizes the frustration of actually ribbing. Overall, I'm happy with the finished product. Go go gadget gauge swatches!

Pattern: Under the Hoodie from Stitch and Bitch
Yarn: About 6 1/2 skeins of Schachenmayr nomotta Bravo Baby, sport weight, 100% acrylic. (I still have just under 4 skeins of it left.) Christmas gift
Needles: Size 7 (4.5mm) straight, Size 8 (5mm) 24" circular . Had to buy the circular, but that's okay, as I promptly picked it up again for a baby blanket
Price: $14.95 for the needles, the rest was in the collection or a gift
Time: Once I started knitting, it took about a month of farting around. Had I focused, I think it could have easily been done in two weeks.

Note: Please ignore the devil eyes and crazy hair in the photos. I had a long day and it was raining.