Button happiness

A popular Irish blessing begins "May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind always be at your back." I have a new blessing for knitters of sweaters: 

May your buttons always be evenly spaced. 

I've always found that very challenging, until I discovered this phenomenal tool: the SimFlex Expanding Sewing Gauge. 

Believe me, the rather hefty price felt completely worth it the very first time I used it to space some buttons and button holes. Even using the metric system rather than our ungainly system of inches and fractions thereof, I always had problems with the arithmetic of spacing seven objects evenly.

    With the help of my handy tool, I have finally finished my Mayan Dreams sweater by sewing on clasps. (If there's anything I dislike more than getting spacing even, it's making buttonholes.) I will make buttonholes if I feel the sweater demands them but these clasps from Schoolhouse Press are just so lovely and go so well with this sweater. 

The nitty gritty: The sweater is my own design and knit with Kauni Wool 8/2 Effekgarn in color ways ET and EZ. I needed to edit out some light grey and dark turquoise yarn to get the amount of color contrast I wanted. Start time to completion was one and a half years—it lay dormant for quite a while. I finished it just in time for some lovely crisp autumn weather and I have found it a joy to wear.