Snail Spirals

Thanks to everyone for the well-wishes about the sweater. I know that ultimately I'll be glad I frogged it, but it sure was a hard step! I started the first sleeve Wednesday night and got the ribbing and half a repeat of the big cable done. While following Emma around the ferry yesterday, I was able to get to halfway through the fourth cable repeat. There are to be nine repeats up the sleeve before joining the sleeves to the body, so I'm halfway there.



I do so love cables. I'm always amazed, even after all these years of knitting, to watch a plain ball of yarn be transformed into an intricate texture pattern. I'm just pulling loops through loops, but it seems almost magical. Color patterns don't have the same effect- it's the texture that gets me.

I was in a bit of a slump earlier this week, after ripping out the sweater. I guess I should have known better than to take up this project right after finishing the alpaca shawl and ugly pink sweater and coming off the Scrapbook Binge. I did finish all the wedding and honeymoon pictures, and organized the next year's worth of photos so as to be ready for the next time I go on a scrapbook binge. I think finishing those three big projects in less than a month, followed immediately by frogging my beautiful sweater, kind of burned me out for a bit. I didn't do anything fibery at all, I just read and watched TV. I couldn't get enthusiastic about anything.

However, Shaun left town for a job interview across the country on Wednesday morning, so I started the sleeve. Enthusiasm has returned. I love watching the cables emerge, and it seems to be going quickly. It'll be nice to finally give Dad his sweater. I just hope it fits this time!

In the picture above, you can see two goodies I picked up while I was off-island yesterday- an umbrella swift and some roving. I've wanted a swift for a long time, but they are so expensive! I popped into a yarn shop before heading back to the ferry, and good thing I did. The swift was drastically marked down, because it's scratched. I don't mind in the least, as it's purely cosmetic. I'm not exactly sure what happened with the roving. It kind of launched itself off the shelf and into my hands, and somehow was rung up with the swift and put in my bag. It's a pound of lovely soft Colonial top, with blues and greens and purples and teal. The medium blue exactly matches Emma's eyes, and this will become a sweater for her.