More than 20 years ago I bought this yarn from a lovely woman in Vermont who raised sheep and taught spinning and weaving. She had spun it from her own flock. I’d been wanting to make a Gansey-style since reading Knitter’s Workshop by Elizabeth Zimmermann.

https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/gaffers-fisherman-gansey

I used that pattern and her percentage system as my starting point and ended up with the garment shown. It hasn’t been washed or blocked yet. I’m anticipating a lovely soft bloom after washing.

Since I’m no longer living in Vermont I have little need for anything this warm. I have a friend there who could wear it but aforementioned sheep will roost in sugar maple trees before that guy hand washes a sweater. So the parts of the gansey went into storage with the other WhyDidIMakeThis items.
Then I ran into a friend who informed me that in a couple of weeks he was moving across the country so we’d never see each other again. My first thought: Damn! I was planning to ask him out! Over lunch we figured out that there had been misunderstandings…. Well, the next week and a half were crazy, and wonderful, and bittersweet. I tell people that in the end I want to have the best stories of all the old women in the rest home and it’s in my top three.

The gansey fits him perfectly. He loves it. I’ll do the last of the finishing, give it a bath, and pack it up with a little bottle of wool wash. He says he will bathe it carefully.
I think this is the double-half-backflip-twist version of the sweater curse. When the sweater is ready, the man who will leave with it will come?