Back in the saddle again

Well, I broke down and got the Crappy Cardi back on the needles. I've decided that if a good washing doesn't fix that stupid dark band around the middle, I'm going to over-dye the entire sweater with dark blue.

So, I've been working the "chain-cable" up the shoulder, and it's really fun. I'm knitting back backward across the "wrong-side" rows, and knitting it together alternately with the front and back. . It's a lot easier to show than say.

I'm almost to the point of working across the back to make the front lower than the back, and I'll be done! With the knitting, anyway. I still need to sew and then cut the front steek, and the side slits. Then I need to come up with an edge. I'm thinking I-cord.

The whole dark band thing is still getting me down. Maybe I'll shoot off a plea for help on Knit-U. I keep worrying that I'll dye this thing blue and then it'll just be a purple sweater with a dark band of purple in the middle.

Well, I'm almost done with my newest sock. Just a few more rows and some grafting, and this sucker's done! I've been working on the 2nd sock of my hand-dyed yarn, and I've got about 3 inches done. But it's in the car, so there's no pic right now. Maybe later.

There's no new spinning, but I've swatched my Blackbird yarn.

This is pretty amazing for a few reasons.

Firstly, I very RARELY swatch. I think it's a waste of knitting time that could have been spent on actual knitting. And of course it's boring. And the few times I have swatched, the actual project gauge turned out different than the swatch anyway.

Secondly, this is only the second time I've actually knit my handspun. Believe me, I've got plenty of handspun yarn around. So, the fact that this yarn moved me to actually knit it is pretty surprising to me. In fact, I'm pretty sure it's destined to be a hoodie much like Rogue. I had actually bought this pattern once, but my old computer crashed, and took my pattern with it. But I think I saw a recent Elsebeth Lavold pattern in Knitter's magazine that I like too. Anyway, I'll hone in on one here pretty soon. Oh, yeah, and I guess I'll need to spin the yarn too, huh?