Since the yarn I used for the soon-to-be-published Lace Cable Rib Pullover has been discontinued, I have swatched with a number of p

I usually try to suggest several alternative yarn choices for each of my patterns.

After close to a year, I'm finally almost ready to send the pattern for this sweater off to my tech editor.  Othe

But still nameless (suggestions welcome!).  After my latest unbloggable prject is finished, I'll get to work d

So bene dove ho sbagliato....

For once I have a week or two in between projects:  I'm waiting for a yarn delivery so I can start my next one.  In the meantime I've finally been able to do some required ripping. 

Last August during our annual sailboat trip I was working on Sorelle; this year, the as-yet-to-be-named top-down raglan pullover (Tilli Tomas Fil de la Me

I'm thinking I'm done!  Just bind off, and...just kidding.  But mostly so far, so good, although I'm going to rework the sleeve cuff; I was thinking I would do a fairly snug ribbed cuff that would be best worn pushed up on the forearm, but this one is too tight and unyielding. The color of the yarn is better represented in the second photo.  I reworked the neck four times using various edge treatments, including a twisted cable rib, but in the end I decided simpler is better.  I also blocked right after casting on stitches for the underarms, to make sure I wasn't misjudging the final gauge; if you look carefully, you can see the transition between the blocked and unblocked fabric.

I think this has been the longest time I've gone without posting since starting this blog.  The time just slipped away:  somewhere between leaving Italy for the summer, arriving back in the U.S., and taking care of various home- and family-related needs, suddenly, it became July.  I haven't done a great deal of knitting either, although I have made an important step in regard to my future designing and knitting (or perhaps non-knitting) life:  I've hired a Test Knitter.  I'm anxiously awaiting the results, but in fact there's probably no turning back:  I just want to design more things than I can possibly knit with my own two hands. Near future plans:  by the time the kids are back in school, there are several things I want to accomplish, design-wise.  I want to write up designs for a hat or two; and for a child's vest with which I hope to kill two birds with one stone (surely there's a kinder way to express this sentiment!), namely create something personal for my two sons, for whom I've neither knit nor designed in the past almost-two-years, and create a design which will be relatively quick and fun to knit.  I want to work up various submissions including one for Twist Collective, which to me is an intriguing and exciting twist on the online knitting magazine.  I want to finish my top-down raglan sweater using Tilli Tomas Fil de la Mer, on which I am slowly progressing; I didn't take any photos of the four different neckline treatments I tried, or the three different sleeve cuff ideas I had, but next post:  photos of what still remains. 

(I'm having a blast!)In spite of the fact that I've ripped back the sleeve I'm working on twice already, I find this working from the top down to be somehow more magical than from the bottom up. Maybe it's because I just finished reading the last two Harry Potter installments (late to the party, indeed), or maybe it's just something about being able to pull on a sweater and see it growing from the shoulders down.... Growing slowly, unfortunately. As intriguing as I find this stitch pattern, it just doesn't want to cooperate with any of the other stitch patterns I've put next to it. I was originally planning a slightly belled cuff with a stitch pattern with an arched effect, but it just didn't work. I think the combination of the wavy cable and the slight openwork is complicating matters-- I want to keep this pullover solid enough that it can be worn without an underlayer, so I've been avoiding any lace with too many eyelets. I'm running out of ideas, but I do still have one or two up my sleeve (ha ha). (These photos are all of unblocked work, by the way; judging from the swatch, I think the effect will be quite different after blocking.)