Birthday Sweater

The Wibble sweater is in the process of getting its neckband. It's taking forever, since my normally freakishly long attention span is not working for free-loop backstitch; I can only do this for a few minutes at a time without getting fried. About half of the neckband is attached at this point. Luckily it looks OK, although I'm not sure if that's because I'm doing it right, or because pretty much anything will look OK with a yarn that is variegated and nubby and thick-and-thin. I suspect the latter.

In the meantime, I've been working on the top-down ribbed raglan in my birthday Ella Rae Classic.

For most people, ribbing with a bit of negative ease takes care of all curve-hugging, without any shaping necessary. However, I am extremely curvy (38/28/42, my apologies if that's TMI), so that won't be enough for me. I've worked it out so I'm getting 1/2 to 2 inches of negative ease in the chest (actual amount will depend on the width of the edging), but I still plan on doing some subtle waist shaping, using cabling instead of decreases. Just 2 cables in the front and 2 in the back, placed where those "S" things would be if I were a violin. Then I'm going to do some increases for the hips, since I certainly don't want any negative ease there.

I'm still trying to learn new techniques, and I've got two lined up for this project. First, I'm going to try tubular (sewn) bind-off instead of just binding off all stitches in pattern. Second, I'm going to do 1 or 2 rows of single crochet, rather than a knitted edging, for the front edges and around the neck. This is where the buttonholes (if any) will go, which saves me the headache of deciding this in advance. It will be great to have the sweater completely finished, so I can make an informed decision about whether it looks better with buttons all the way up the front, or just one button at the neckline, or no closure, or whatever.

I am really liking this yarn, especially considering how inexpensive it is. I also seem to be getting a lot more out of it than I expected. The first ball lasted almost all the way through the yoke - just a few rows short. The second ball is attached to the body, and the third to the sleeve. Somehow I don't think I'm going to need 7 more balls to complete this thing. If I'm really lucky, maybe I'll get a twinset out of it!

Waiting in the wings: About a year ago, I bought a bunch of flannel-grey Classic Elite Montera, to knit a cabled sweater from last year's fall or winter (can't remember which) VK. I lost my motivation to knit that sweater, though, and the yarn has just been sitting in my stash. I've decided to use it for a modified version of the Honeycomb Henley from Knitting Nature. First of all, the yarn is significantly bulkier than the recommended yarn (knits up on a 9 rather than a 7), so I will need to adjust for gauge. Secondly, I don't want to agonize over seaming, so I'm going to knit it in the round and either "raglanize" the sleeves (is that a word?) or try to do some kind of crazy EZ seamless set in sleeve thing.