update on three hour sweater

I have finished the main knitting of the 3 hour sweater (pattern here) and I am painfully sewing it together.

I have to say that I did tweak the pattern a bit.
1. the ribbing at the bottom of the front and back was too tight on 5mm needles so I upgraded to 6.5mm which made a much neater finish.
2. the start of the sleeve was awful to knit in double rib on size 10mm so I started on 7.5mm for a few rows and then changed back to 10mm. The ribbing at the cuff of the sleeve seemed very loose on size 10mm needles so I pulled it undone and downgraded to 7.5mm.

I used 8 ply crepe and a tencel like yarn together for a mottled effect and when I did a test swatch the tension seemed okay. However, I can now see that overall my tension was very loose and the body part is quite soft and the neckline potentially baggy. I was also worried that I was going to run out of the purple yarn, so I decided to combat the sloppiness by using two strands of the grey crepe on the stocking stitch part of the sleeve and this knitted up beautifully and looks very neat. I went back to the mottled effect for the ribbing.

Sewing up is dispiriting as I am not sure I like the sweater. It is very heavy - despite the loose knit. At least with the sleeves being a firmer knit they provide structure and hold the neck in place. I wonder if I should consider pulling undone the front to the start of the neck rib and re-doing on 7.5mm needles to see what would happen. The tragedy is that I have sewn up 75% of the seams and the thought of unpicking all of that makes me feel really depressed.

It goes without saying, that this sweater took a lot longer than 3 hours for me to knit, but the pattern was really easy for me to follow. I particularly like the raglan sleeves which suit me, as I have wide swimmer shoulders.

Okay, just done some Googling and look what I found:
http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=139682.0

and this
http://www.fibergypsy.com/common/needles.shtml

Cut and paste from discussion board

vintageknits.com describes it as: UNGER GERMANTOWN ZEPHYR 100% WOOL, 2 OZ 150 YDS.

Wiseneedle's actually got a chart up listing historical needle sizes and yarns compared to today's, and has this to say about Germantown Zephyr:

Historical Needle Size: UK8
Modern Needle Size: 4mm (US 6)
Expected Gauge and Modern Yarn Type: DK weight 22sts=4 inches
Historical Names: Germantown, Zephyr
Possible Modern Substitutes: Jaeger Matchmaker DK, Jo Sharp DK Wool, most standard DK yarns, most 4 ply fingering weights, doubled.

So, dear reader, it looks like I was using the WRONG needle. LOL