Owl jumper finally finished!

It has taken me an embarrassingly long time to finish, but my Kate Davies Owl jumper is finally done!!!

When Kat announced she and Sabs were running a knit along for the owl jumper which I had seen popping up everywhere, I jumped on board.  However having started it, knit half the body, realised it was going to be too small, frogging it and starting over, I totally missed the knit along deadline and so gave up on it for a bit. However I'm so glad I took it up again as the finished jumper is making me happy and is going to fit so well into my wardrobe.  It goes well with this strawberry circle skirt (pre blog), my kilt and a host of other unblogged items.

I wore this on a recent day trip to york with my friend Elizabeth. We had lots of fun visiting the railway museum and taking silly photos *Warning* there are lots of irreverent and irrelevant photos coming up so those who are just here for the knitting, feel free to scroll to the end.  I make no apologies for us loving trains!

 Lovely old train destination ads.

 Luggage for going off to school.

 Milk delivery by train, how cool is that.

 I fell off the train and Elizabeth caught it on camera, hilarious!

To put into perspective how long this jumper was in the making, on our last fun trip away (to Leeds) when I took the trio of skirt photos, I had started the jumper and when I spotted this statue of an owl and took a snap with a 'look at how owl themed my life is' type comment planned. 

It has just occurred to me that although I've done a fair amount of knitting this year and learnt loads (quite a chunk of that learning was linked to this jumper), this is the first knitted item I have ever made for me.  Yay, for selfish knitting!

This was actually a surprisingly easy make (YouTube tutorials are my friends). I used Wendy merino wool which is lovely and soft and I LOVE the colour which is going to be a perfect addition to my wardrobe. However I have a suspicion that the wool is going to pile quite a bit. 

I had some surprises when I had finished this. It came out quite a bit shorter on me than the other versions I have seen on the net, even though the pattern states it is designed for someone xxx. It may be because I have a long body as my swatch said I was knitting to the correct gauge. However for me this was a happy accident as really I wanted a cropped sweater but at the time was too lazy to do the maths to create it. Also both sleeves could do with being a little longer (long body and monkey arms!)  The left one is fine but the right one leaves a 1-2cm gap exposed which my wrist is not living in this cold weather. 

Have any of you been thinking of knitting this?  I would really recommend it as a pattern for someone who is just beyond beginner stage (or beyond).  Also at the end you get a lovely, warm, snuggly jumper with owls!!!