Recently in Cabled and Ribbed Sweater Category

If you're newer to reading my blog (meaning, within the past 8 months or so) you may not even recognize this sweater. It's my oldest UFO.

I cast on for this on January 1, 2004 -- almost 2 years ago. I have a history of working on this sweater in fits. I'll pick it up for a few weeks and finish a piece, then leave it be for 10 months. I'm not sure why, it just isn't able to keep my constant attention.

On Friday I decided I should finish it for Christmas. All that's left are 2 sleeves, a neckband, and the seaming. The front and back have already been blocked (that explains why the body looks so different from the sleeve I propped on top of it.

I'm trying something new and doing 2 sleeves at once. So far I like it. My biggest beef with doing 2 at once is dealing with the extra ends, but I stuck both balls in a ziploc to keep them from rolling around each other and that's made all the difference. Each time I finish a row I give the bag a half-turn and it's completely detangled.

You may notice the sleeve has a bit of navy at the bottom of it. That's the way the pattern was written but I wasn't sure I wanted to do it. Now that it's done I'm really glad I did. The Araucania looks so nice with the added color in there at the bottom. It even got me thinking that striping Araucania for another sweater would be really nice. For now though my focus is on finishing this sweater.

Where have I been?

End of year is my work's most busy time -- leaving me almost no knitting time during the week. Since I'm not fond of those "I'm here but really busy" posts you'll only see a few more posts from me until the 20th (my last day of work for the year!). I am here though (and I'm fine) -- just busy and trying to tie up all those loose ends so I can take time off without worrying too much about what's going on while I'm off.

Next week's goal -- a completed back!

click for the full frontal shot*

I like this project more and more. I'm a few inches up the back now too, but since it's just 2x2 ribbing I'll spare you the shot. The sleeves are supposed to be a single panel of the cable (as opposed to the 3 that's on the front) flanked by 2x2 ribbing. I've been considering making the sleeves just ribbing. What do you think?

poll closed! thanks for voting!

* imagine the riff raff that'll encourage