how'd that get there?

I don't know how it happened. I finished weaving in ends on my Front and Back Cable Sweater at knitting club last week, and so I cast on the for the Drops jacket, you know, just to have something to do, and after just a couple evenings of knitting this week, I had the back piece and left front panel finished, and now I'm halfway done with the right panel. And this includes an hour or so of working on it at knitting club, which is usually counterproductive to my knitting progress! I'm using Valley Yarns Berkshire Bulky in plum, and size 10.75 needles. I'm not so sure about the color yet, but I can't complain about how fast this thing knits up! And I didn't knit at all last weekend because I was making jewelry like a fiend. Here are the pieces I am currently having a hard time parting with...

The silver bracelet isn't in the shop yet, but it will be.

So speaking of knitting club...is it over? My friend Kim says the word on the street is that the knitting fad is finished and that it's just the die hards left, now. It seems like there's been a decrease in knit club attendance over the past 6 months or so, and it kind of has a few of us scratching our heads. But perhaps those of us scratching our heads are such die hard knitters that we cannot comprehend why anyone would NOT knit. (Die hard, nerd...Tomato, tomahto.) Last week there was an article about our knitting club that appeared in a free publication, which may have enticed a few more people to show up for our knit nights, had I not come off sounding like a supreme ding-dong. Turns out, when your say things to reporters, they actually write them down.

Thank you, thank you, thank you all for your gracious comments on my Front and Back Cable Sweater! I felt some serious love from you guys. :)

front and back cable sweater

Finished the Front and Back Cable Sweater...and still haven't come up with a better name for it. I'm really happy with the way this came out, despite the headaches at the beginning. The pattern was from Gedifra Highlights 033, but I scrapped the pattern long ago, since it was seriously weird, and decided to use the cable chart only, knitting top-down. I tried it on approximately eleventy-billion times, but it was worth it. It grew after blocking, so it's perhaps a little long, but that's better than being even a smidge too short, in my book. I wound up using 9 balls of Rowan Cashsoft DK on size 4 needles. Since I knit this top-down, instead of bottom-up, I just had to read the cable chart top to bottom, left to right and it did what it was supposed to do. And I think I have a major crush on this cable, even if it does look like a spine. :)

I've already started another sweater, and there's a "newspaper" article and new Small Bird projects to share, but that's another post for another day. Right now I think I'll kick back and savor this FO.

design on the fly

I was nearing the end of the body of my Front and Back Cable Sweater, and I decided to add ribbing at the bottom of the sweater, instead of the rolled edge in the original pattern. Then I decided that the cable should really extend all the way to the bottom and the ribbing should be next to it, to mirror the design of the neckline. All this was going through my head WHILE I continued to knit away toward the bottom of the sweater. By the time I made my final decision, I was past the point where I should have started the ribbing. So every other two stitches I dropped two stitches down 12 rows and changed each of them from knits to purls with a crochet hook.

Presto! Change-o!---Ribbing! Ok, it wasn't so much "Presto! Change-o!" as it was "Grumble! Glare at my knitting! Exasperated sigh! Change-o!" but it still worked and I'm glad I went back and changed it. Next time...think first, knit second.