Sweater update

Thought maybe it's time to post an update on my husband's sweater.  The sweater is knitted in the round from the bottom hem up to the armholes, and at that point I decided I should steam the sweater nice and flat in order to get a more accurate measurement:

Look at how that colorwork just POPS!  My current dilemma is whether to go down a needle size because now that I'm knitting the front and back separately, I am noticing that my gauge is different.  I'm not sure yet how to fix the problem aside from changing needle size and then, how far down do I go?  Not sure that going from 9 down to 8 will work but as soon as I finish my Shalom Cardigan, I'll sit down with this one and decide what to do.  The pattern looks pretty straightforward from here on out but I do worry about the size of the armholes and the sleeves... some folks have said the sleeves are too big for the armholes.  I think in a couple of weeks (during winter break) I'll be able to put some serious time into this sweater and finish it before I start on the insane 12 sweaters in 2012 challenge (see the post below for more on that).

Since Shalom only needs one sleeve (which is easy to do!) I will concentrate on finishing that SOON so that I can focus on this sweater for hubs.  One of my knitting goals -- which I'll post later this month -- involves focusing on one project at a time, and eventually getting down to only 3 projects in progress at once.  One knitting project, one crochet project and one spinning project.  Of course. that also means I need to finish or "frog" many items that are in danger of never getting finished.  But that's a post for another day.  For now, good night!

~mz