On the needles

Palette Sampler Sweater

The Palette sampler sweater is still on the needles but I am making fairly decent progress on it.   I've finished with the body and have started the first sleeve's ribbing.  Before you get too excited about that though, let me remind you that I'm doing Swoncho style sleeves.  Swoncho sleeves start the ribbing at the elbow.  In other words, I still have ten or eleven more inches to go.

This will definitely be a one of a kind sweater.  I used Green Mountain Spinnery's Easy Ragland design for the number of cast on stitches, increase stitch marker placement and a rough estimate for how many ragland increases to knit and the rest, I have made up as I went along.  

I've knit that Easy Ragland design a gazillion times and wanted something a little different this time.  The two yarns held together and changing of one at a time every few inches made it colorful and I'd never be able to recreate the stripe pattern.  And because I used up some of the skeins on the body and other skeins are oh-so-close but just slightly different in color to others, it's very difficult to visually figure out which skeins I used where.  And of course I didn't track them in any kind of way so...  So, the sleeves will not match the body, nor even each other.

This sweater is going to be one wild beast!

Rather than doing standard ribbing at the waist, I decided to do a garter stitch split hem.  I also added a few extra garter ridges on the back edge.

And as for the sleeves, well, who knows how they will turn out.  Once I decided to knit swoncho-style sleeves, I set aside a few full skeins for the ribbing.... And then forgot to plan for the color change.  So now I'll be doing the ribbing in colorful stripes as well.  I do think I might try to end both sleeves with the same yarns though.  While I've never been bothered about my striped socks not matching, I think it might make me a little crazy if the cuffs around my wrists don't match.  

In any event, the sweater is going to be a wild beast of color and mismatched edgings.  And warm, which is another reason it may take me a month to finish knitting the sleeve ribbing.

If you are so inclined, please keep me in your thoughts tomorrow.  I'm finally getting the biopsy done on my thyroid, and not a moment too soon.  I'm starting to have trouble sleeping because I'm having difficulty breathing if my head is turned or tipped forward the least little bit.  Well, that's not exactly true - it just feels like I can't breathe.  At first the growth gave me the sensation of wearing a too tight turtle neck but now it feels more like a steel bar is pressing against my throat.

In any event, I'm excited to finally be doing something about it but I'll admit that I'm a little nervous about them jabbing needles into my neck.  Actually what I'm nervous about is the fact that I won't be allowed to talk or swallow while they jab needles into my neck.  The very moment you tell me not to do either, I start speed talking and/or swallowing.  If I fail to post here on Thursday, you'll know I swallowed at the wrong moment and they stuck me in the jugular.