Legacy Sweater, Part 1

My grandmother taught me how to knit when I was a child. She's the one who got me my first pair of knitting needles- They were plastic, dark green, and probably designed specifically for kids.

I guess I had the standard relationship with knitting that most kids have- I didn't knit for a long time, churned out one garter stitch scarf for a high school boyfriend, and then didn't knit again until my mid-twenties, where I suddenly became obsessed with knitting, and specifically with knitting socks, for no rational reason whatsoever.

My grandmother has had Alzheimer's for about ten years now. At the beginning, she could still knit and often did- she was working on a sweater for my mom. But as you can see, her brain was have difficulty remembering the proper way to do things(not exactly the way to bind off ribbing...) (um, the front and the back are not the same. At all. And if you look closely, there is soup or something orangey on the sweater.)

Of course, she had to put it down. Then she was knitting these skinny, long scarves- it was as if her fingers still knew the mechanics and could knit, but her brain could no longer decide what a normal scarf looked like. But still, it was something for her to do.

My grandmother is still alive, but will not outlive this year. Just before Christmas, she was diagnosed with cancer, and since she already has such advanced Alzheimer's, there's really nothing that can be done. I couldn't frog what she had already knitted- this is, in essence, the last thing she will ever knit. So I only ripped back the cast off edge, and decided to do some seamstress-ing to tidy up the rest. And wash it, of course.

I finished the sweater on December 24th, tried it on, knew that something was horribly wrong (how could the sleeves be so long? I thought I tried them on as I went) and the wide, square neckline results in sleeve caps that don't stay on the shoulders too well, especially once I washed it and the yarn grew!!), but decided to wrap it up anyway and sort it out after my mother tried it on. As suspected, she promptly burst into tears when she saw it- she recognized the wool. She knew what it was. Even though it didn't fit right, I promised to fix it. She loved it anyway.

I brought the sweater back to Toronto with me, to sort the sleeve issue and the neckline issues. I could use some suggestions, so please feel free to drop me a line! Here's the run down: sleeve cap is bagging, not clinging to the neckline at all.

A little shapeless, which is okay in the front....

...but crap in the back. And look how low that back neckline is!

And, well... obviously, this sweater needs help.

Suggestions? I can rip out the sleeves and the neckline, that's the part that I did the knitting for, and it's not my handiwork that I'm trying to preserve!