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In between wasting truly staggering amounts of time futzing around on Ravelry, I've actually managed to partially write up the pattern for Sorelle...and to take a few modeled photos, which nicely demonstrate why i

E si chiama "Sorelle."

Well, I didn't do any knitting on the red-eye from Boston to Europe (are you kidding?!--I was trying to get a few hours of sleep), but somewhere, somehow over the last few weeks, while packing and moving the family back to Italy for the school year, I've managed to finish the sleeves of my Four Sisters pullover.  The lace panel runs up the outside of the sleeves, and I've decided to try raglan sleeves and a wide, scooped neck opening, with a neckband of Bead Stitch knitted on after seaming the body and sleeves. In the second photo the sleeve vent is visible; placing this took some thought, because I realized that my first idea, to put the vent on the outside (opposite where the sleeve seam would be, if the sleeve had not been worked in the round), would have messed up that nice segue from Bead Stitch to Four Sisters.  Instead, I put the vent further to the back of the arm; although after I knit the first sleeve, I looked at all of the sleeve vents on all of the jackets hanging in our closet, and saw that almost all of them are just slightly behind the point opposite the underarm seam.  (I wish there was a less cumbersome way of describing this, but I can't think of one.)  Anyway, although this seemed too minor a detail to require re-knitting the entire sleeve (unlike my earlier sleeve wars), I may put the vent there when I write up the pattern.  If I like how the vents look after blocking, that is. 

Here is the body of my Four Sisters pullover, and as you can see, there is no Four Sisters to be seen.  What happened was that, once I had decided to use the columns of twist stitches to help with

Here is the Berroco Touche in Green Tea, swatched into Bead Stitch and Four Sisters.  For the top swatch I used U.S.

Well, I have to admit that the Debbie Bliss Pure Silk is very pretty when knit up.  It's odd to work with because it's so slippery; I often felt as if the stitches I was working on were very loose, and yet the stockinette sections turned out to be very unif

I haven't worked with many variegated or nubbly textured yarns before, so after knitting up a swatch in my Shire Silk, I was quite disappointed to see that the Bead Stitch pattern, from which the more complicated Four Sisters pattern is derived, was quite lost amidst the nubbles.  I suppose a larger needle might have helped, but the stockinette portion seemed about right; I didn't want it any looser--nor did I think it was worth swatching the Four Sisters, given what I had already seen.  The Bead Stitch is at the bottom of the swatch, while at the top  is a simple rib; I was wondering whether any stitch pattern would show up in this stuff. Then I thought that perhaps a big cable would be nice, so I tried that, with so-so results.  This "Framed Cable" pattern is really great, too, pictured on the far left in the book; I'll have to use it for something else.  So what to do with this Shire Silk, in what is a nicer color than it appears in the picture (mainly a light silvery green which reminds me of the foliage of a Russian olive tree)??  If it is destined to be a slouchy pullover in mostly stockinette, then I will definitely have to get one of those knitting machines. So I shelved the Shire Silk for now, and moved on to my second choice:  Debbie Bliss Pure Silk.  Wow, this is slippery; so slippery that when I pulled it off my ballwinder, it promptly collapsed.  I tried to rewind it, and here is the resulting mess.  Not only is it slippery, but it twists around itself if given the chance.  I finally had to cut it in a couple of places, which for someone like me, who abhors working in ends, is highly annoying. Stay tuned:  will the Pure Silk redeem itself once knit?  I wonder....