This sweater has a story to tell.

And my husband decided to strike a pose for that story ...

It began in the summer of 2012 after R's grueling year of kindergarten. It began with boredom and a little over-confidence. After agreeing on this pattern, I promised my husband it would be finished by Christmas.

Then came my first teaching job and boy, did that take a lot of my time! Around Christmas, I explained that it would probably be more like spring or summer ... he would have it, at least, by the next fall.

The next fall, in my second year of teaching, I made a bit more progress, but not much. I brought it to my annual knitting retreat with high hopes of making the significant progress that I did make, but upon returning home, I was knee-deep in research papers and new lesson plans, and well, I kept putting the sweater off to the side.

Suddenly, Joel and I decided to move out of Wisconsin back to the town in which we grew up. We made some big decisions, took some chances, and I was lucky to find another teaching job near my new home. It was a new grade, a totally different curriculum, and a ton of work. I went to the 2014 knitting retreat STILL working on this sweater, and before I left, I told my girlfriends to throw me in the lake if I brought this project to the next retreat.

At the end of each day, I was tired. Whereas I used to knit on long car-rides, or while watching TV, my teaching job was taking so much from me that I just wanted to be still. I started having visions of a cold dip in the lake in the fall of 2015 ...

This sweater, which took me more than three years to complete has seen so much of our lives. It was there when R overcame her biggest fear upon entering first grade. It was there through some long days and long nights of juggling the teacher life with regular life. It was there when we went through many of our infertility heartaches, and it was there when we went through the utter shock of finding out we were actually expecting. It's been with me through this entire pregnancy, contributing to my hot flashes because I decided this sweater was going to be finished before the baby was born - or it would never be finished. It was there with me during the 2015 knitting retreat, when my gracious friends decided not to throw a pregnant lady into an ice cold lake.

And now, less than a week before my due date, it's finished. Look, my husband even threw it over the railing ... like a real sweater.

I ravelled about it here.