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Nearly done

I'm so near the finish now, but have slowed down because I'm a little bit bored with dark brown and also not sure that the end result is going to be quite as I hoped. Never mind, it's not too bad and the recipient has tried it on a couple of times and so I know it does fit. In the top picture I've pinned the neck together. You can see that the left shoulder saddle is finished to the neckline and the right-hand saddle is just creeping in.

Here's the way the top of the saddle met the diagonals of the placket:

I had hoped to be able somehow to carry on the lines of the placket but I just couldn't work out how. I modified the decreases from the saddle slightly to give the illusion that the ribs coming up from the placket were going over the horizontal ribs of the shoulder, but without huge success. What has worked quite well is changing from stocking stitch to 2x2 ribbing for the shoulder. The ribbing will carry on round the back of the neck. It's a bit of a jigsaw puzzle at the moment, but I think it will work!

I'm rather distracted by an invitation to join the Twined Knitting group on Ravelry. I've always wanted to learn how to do that!

I've been monogamous (nearly)

I promised myself and the blog that I wouldn't swatch my newly acquired Classy until I had finished T's fatigue jersey. Well I haven't, but I may have done a teeny tiny swatch of Yorkshire Tweed 4-ply:

This is going to be a Katherine Hepburn cardigan from Lace Style. I saw a lovely version on Ravelry done in Yorkshire Tweed 4-ply and it so happened that Janette had a special offer on this colour (Lustre) and Barley (which I went back and ordered later). The combination of little cables and small lace pattern is lovely, I think. Yes, I know the cables bend different ways top and bottom - I was practising cabling without a cable needle! (And, yes, I realised when I'd finished that I had done the wrong double decrease - it will be centred in the real thing.)

But I have made really good progress on the fatigue. I'm doing a seamless hybrid raglan with the shirt yoke variation from Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitting Workshop. I have made a body and two sleeves and have knitted them together into a yoke, decreasing at the raglan seam lines every three rows as instructed. Now I have split the front for the placket, which means I'm no longer working in the round. I was pleased to be able to work out a double purl decrease which seems to match the knit ones OK.

I had to pause for thought about how the diagonal sides of the placket and the raglan shaping were going to interact. I've decided just to go for it and see what happens - fudging is my middle name!

Little cakes of yarn

I'm improving in my ballwinding skills, although the 'interface' between yarn swift and ball winder still sometimes breaks down.

The light grey is recycled Rowan 4-ply tweed - I think it may be Donegal tweed - that I half knitted into a jersey for my eldest son when he was about 2. Now he's 18... I have some more part skeins and some unused skeins, so this could be the basis of a fair isle project.

The dark grey is Malabrigo laceweight merino in the Paris Night colourway. I fell for this at Stash a couple of weeks ago but they only had one in stock. Dawn came to the rescue: I bought her two skeins of Purple Mystery and we did a swap! I have plans to make a Gerda stole with this (free pattern pdf). It is the most deliciously soft cuddly yarn; I like slightly thicker laceweight.

The greeny-brown is Dream in Color Classy (Lucky Jade) that I bought in the sale at Socktopus (sadly, this yarn is no longer at a reduced price, but others are). I have seven of these to make into a top-down cardigan (but I'm not even swatching until I finish the fatigue).

I'm making good progress on T's fatigue. The body is done to the armholes and I am half way up the first sleeve. Unbelievably swift progress for me - only just over a week so far!