Yikes, spring is coming and What pray tell have I done?

School, gym, and life seem to have taken up way too much of my time.  My page count for scrapping is just abysmal.  I have to confess that it's two.  That's right two.

I have two classes on my plate this term and they both take more  time than I had hoped they would.  On the plus side, my Medieval Latin class is a blast.  My prof has a seriously good sense of humour and when you're translating the Vulgate Bible and contemporary commentaries on it, it helps immensely.  Translating this kind of writing is terribly interesting but at the same time difficult. Lots of new vocabulary and lots of terms with a totally different meaning than they had in Classical Latin.

All the learning aside, I have however, had time to finish up a major knitting project.  Unfortunately, I can't say that I am entirely happy with it.  At this time I have to admit that I came to the whole Ravelry thing a bit late in my knitting career and had I arrived sooner, this disappointment might have been avoided.  First off, the pattern is gorgeous being from Norah Gaughan and Vogue Knitting, and secondly I did a gauge swatch so the size should have been fine, thirdly I purposely picked a size, small, that I thought was smaller than I actually needed as in my experience knitting patterns tend to run a bit big.  I thought I had gotten off to a right proper start.  Too bad the finish did not go as well.  The sweater is still at least a size or two too big.  Why?  And if I had spent time at Ravelry I would have known this as almost no one has made this pattern work as written.  There are several modifications available and all are major deviations from the instructions given.  I have no idea how one messes up that badly on sizing up a pattern that on the model on the cover looks fantastic.  I too made a couple of modifications, but they were planned from the start.  I made my sleeves long and I added a rib section to the bottom at the back of the sweater.  As a last resort, I may try shrinking it a bit.  We'll see.  It is nice and warm though, and since that's why I made it, not a total loss.