keeping warm

Gorgeous sunset this morning, with a spectacular, warm, tangerine glow behind the mountains. It took me a minute to run and get the camera, and the glow was already dissipating by the time I snapped this, but I wanted to remember this beautiful moment.

In other news, it's been very, very cold here! And I've been trying to keep my man warm with a new hat:
Pattern: Cambridge Watchcap
Yarn: Berrocco Ultra Alpaca, "Redwood Mix," 1 skein
Mods: Mountain Man likes his hats on the shorter side, above his ears actually, so I only knit 8.5" before beginning the top decreases.

The fact that I'm blogging only about the finished object means that I've already broken my resolution to blog more about my incremental progress. But it went quickly and would've made for terribly boring blog fodder. Also, I've only got dial-up now that I'm back up in Vermont, which has proven to be a bit of a disincentive for blogging.

twisted!

Mountain Man recently told me, in a not-really-joking and not-very-complimentary way, that I was a "knitting fanatic." It's true that in the face of academic misery and the semi-isolation of moving back to Vermont, I've increasingly focused on my knitting, relying on it for solace and release. So I can't say that he's wrong. But it does mean that I should yammer about it to the blog instead of to him!

In the spirit of blogging more about my incremental progress, here's the project that I'm currently focused on:
It's a Clapotis-style scarf, knit out of a wool yarn that I'd dyed with cochineal insects. The base yarn is Licorice Twist, so called because one of its three plies is absorbs dye more readily. The shocking pink color and the curl of the scarf make me think of this project as Peppermint Twist.

The Clapotis pattern is easy to modify for size, but it turns out that the 'size' is a moving target. This scarf is 5.25" wide before dropping stitches, broadening into 6.5" with dropped stitches, but then eventually twisting into a 2" diameter tube. The good thing about a scarf, though, is that all of these sizes would work. And while my full-size Clapotis (the only picture is on my very first blog entry) took me a-g-e-s, this is flying by.

baby saves drowning woman

I've been in a bit of a bad mood recently, largely due to the existential woes of coming up with a dissertation topic. I'd even run into a bit of rocky ground with knitting, with lots of mis-fittings and rippings out (didn't quite feel up to blogging about it). In the midst of this, it was a special treat to receive this unexpected and wonderful photo:
Remember the rustic baby sweater that I'd knit in September? This is the darling baby for whom that sweater was intended, and the sweater actually fits now!! It's incredibly gratifying to see my handknits in action, so to speak (I actually remember Veronique saying that getting a photo of a baby wearing your handknits is the holy grail of knitting). This photo came out of the blue, and I am so appreciative of the thoughtfulness behind it. Thank you Morgan, and congratulations on your beautiful baby!

Natural dyeing and 'secret projects'

Although I was reasonably pleased with my most recent natural dyeing experiment, I was left with unresolved questions about why the cochineal dye didn't work. So I tried again under more controlled conditions. I still can't quite predict the colors I'm going to get, so it still feels like alchemy, but this time felt like a success.
The madder gave an unbelievable carrot-juice hue. And the cochineal yielded deep raspberry colors on the unmordanted wool, a soft lavender on an unmordanted silk/wool blend, and a crazy barbie pink on a mordanted wool several days later (pictures of that another time).

I quickly put the cochineal-dyed wool to use in a hat with staghorn cables. It might be appropriate to call this a 'secret project,' but I think instead I'll just say that I'm using the wool in a pattern that I hope to be published in a month or so.
I've been thinking recently, you see, about blogging about 'secret projects' (which I usually interpret, except during the holidays, as indicating a to-be-published pattern). The first time I got to say that, it was somehow pleasantly ego-boosting. But after seeing it a lot recently, I've come to think that it's too close to the self-important "I have a secret and won't tell you!!" proclamations that you hear from kids. I appreciate that people talk about 'secret projects' for reasons that have nothing to do with bragging, like explaining why there hasn't been much to blog about lately. And anyways, a bit of showing off is part of the nature and pleasure of knitting blogs. But somehow the term 'secret project' seems designed to put distance between a blogger and a reader, rather than connecting them. It seems like there are other ways to talk about these projects - for example, saying "a pattern I'm trying to get published" or "my cabled hat" instead of "a secret project" - that are informative and personable enough to draw people in, but still vague enough to make the final project a surprise.

I'm not trying to criticize anyone. I'm just spinning out some thoughts about this to provoke thought and conversation...

tree of life

I've been rather quiet lately because I've been working on secret projects (shhh....), but now that this has been gifted, it's fair to post.
This is a baby blanket and hat with a leaf motif that I knit out of organic cotton. The yarn is marvelous. It's color grown, which means that the cotton itself grows in this soft, sage green. And it's amazingly silky and soft.

Yarn: Blue Sky Alpacas Organic Cotton, "sage," 2 balls
Needles: Size 9 circular and dps, with H crochet hook for the blanket edging
Pattern: my own! very proud.

As you can see in the progress shot, below, the embossed leaf pattern leaves quite a sharp curve at the bottom. But I evened that out by using triple crochets for that section of the border.
There's a whole saga behind this blanket, since I'd initially started a terribly complicated intarsia blanket instead. After many, many hours of working on that blanket, though, I'd decided it looked too amateurish. It was with no small regrets that I bailed and started this leafy blanket.

It all gets back to the value of not being afraid to abandon projects that aren't going well. As one of my professors says, you have to be willing to throw things away rather than getting too invested in something to admit that it's not working out. And in the end, this leafy blanket was such a pleasure to knit, and was received with such praise, that I'm glad I took that plunge.

Cambridge Watchcap

Knit in a cozy alpaca-wool blend, this watchcap is basic enough to keep a guy satisfied. But there's just enough styling - twisted stitches, biased fabric, asymmetric ribbing - to satisfy the knitter, too, and to give the hat a unique, handknit hipness.
Yarn: 1 skein of Berocco Ultra Alpaca, color 6207 'salt and pepper'
Needles: #6 Inox metal circular, with dp's for the top
Gauge: 7 st/inch, unstretched or 4.5 st/inch, slightly stretched.
The hat is stretchy enough to fit heads from 21-23" in circumference.

Cast on 96 stitches.

Join in a circle, and knit in [K2 tbl, P1] ribbing, which is just 2x1 ribbing with twisted knit stitches (tbl = through back loop). Knit in this ribbing until piece measures 10".

Decrease for the top in 8 sections as follows:
Row 1: [K1 tbl, K2tog tbl, {K2 tbl, P1}3x] around (i.e. 8 times)
Row 2: [K1 tbl, K2tog tbl, K1 tbl, P1, {K2 tbl, P1}2x] around
Row 3: [K1 tbl, K2tog tbl, P1, {K2 tbl, P1}2x] around
Row 4: [K1 tbl, K2tog tbl, {K2 tbl, P1}2x] around
Row 5: [K1 tbl, K2tog tbl, K1 tbl, P1, K2 tbl, P1] around
Row 6: [K1 tbl, K2tog tbl, P1, K2 tbl, P1] around
Row 7: [K1 tbl, K2tog tbl, K2 tbl, P1] around
Row 8: [K1 tbl, K2tog tbl, K1 tbl, P1] around
Row 9: [K1 tbl, K2tog tbl, P1] around
Row 10: [K1 tbl, K2tog tbl] around
Row 11: K2tog tbl around

Pull yarn through the remaining 8 stitches, weave in ends and enjoy.
I designed this for my sensational friend Gustavo - please check out his splendid food blog, "The Dinner Bell". We've had some cold days in Cambridge, and I trust that this hat will keep him warm!

And I was so pleased with the hat myself that I've started to make a second one for Mountain Man. Please let me know if you try the pattern too!

little knitting

First FO's of the year! Here's a bundle of small knitted items. Weirdly, there's an unintentional theme here: sister-related and red. Please excuse the drab photography.

First, while my sister was visiting, I knit her a pair of short wristlets and a flower from the Malabrigo yarn that was left over from her hat. The flower pattern was from Handknit Holidays - the "Morning Star" pattern, adapted to be done in the round on dp's. The wristlet pattern was made up on the fly - K1,P1 over 24 stitches (#7 dp's), with garter stitch over a slightly expanded number of stitches. In retrospect, I didn't need to be so conservative with their length, as I ended up with enough yarn to make them a few inches longer. The Malabrigo can go a long way, I found.

Second, my sister actually knit a hat herself!! For years I tried to force knitting on her, and she totally resisted. Now it's just tacitly understood that I'm happy to help if she wants, and -- lo and behold! -- she actually wanted to knit something! It's a beautiful, precious baby hat for her friend, made out of Debbie Bliss alpaca/silk, color 19. It has a garter stitch border with bobbles and big pom pom at the top. Our own pattern, although the design was inspired by a hat we'd seen in some catalog.

Lastly, I made a Calorimetry headband, with the leftover cashmerino from last year's cabled hat. I added some royal blue mohair here and there to make it more interesting. The pattern as written is huge, and it's still a bit big even though I downsized to size 7 needles, only cast on 90 stitches (80 would've been sufficient), and did only half as many repeats of row 5 and 7. It's soft and fun to wear but a bit...well... garish. I think I know someone who could pull it off, though. I'm sending it my sister : )

Natural Dyes, Take II

I launched my second attempt at natural dyeing two weeks ago. I had some madder roots that I was waiting play with. Then my sister -- showing fabulous creativity and thoughtfulness -- had given me a container of dried cochineal bugs for Christmas. When she visited us in Vermont after the holidays, the timing was perfect.

This was tapas-style dyeing, with small experimental snippets rather than yarn enough for a project. We prepared 10 g mini-skeins cut from the leftovers of the last dyebaths, which enabled us to test the cochineal and madder dyebaths on yarns in the following hues: uncolored, canary yellow, golden yellow, and caramel.

It was a wildly uncontrolled, open air, over-the-campfire, time-consuming dyeing adventure. And the results? The madder yielded a light persimmon color. Paler than we wanted, and not quite as rusty-red, but quite pretty and complex. The cochineal, on the other hand, oddly gave us a dark, dull yellow, and only the scraps of yarn that tied the skeins turned the expected pink. There were so many things that could've gone wrong that I can't even begin to diagnose our problems, but it was really, really weird.

Here's a closer look: the two middle yarns show the original marigold colors, and each is flanked by samples overdyed by cochineal, on the left, and madder, on the right. The colors came out a little flat in these photos. In real life, they're much richer and more lively.

The whole enterprise feels like alchemy!!

2006 Knitting Review

2007 is already whipping by with alarming speed. Before it gets too deep into mid-January, I thought I'd do a brief, self-congratulatory review of my 2006 projects. I've been knitting for about eight years, but it was this year that I made an effort to cultivate greater knitting skills, and it definitely feels good to review it.

I was most proud of diving into lace knitting. I'd never previously finished a lace project, but this year I knit my wedding shawl - a 'print o' the wave' stole in ivory alpaca - as well as a flared lace smoke ring for my sister and a fuzzy mohair scarf.
Socks was another area in which I gritted my teeth and made progress. I was most pleased with a pair of Jaywalkers for my sister, and I learned more about sock construction with my blue Elizabeth Zimmerman socks.
And I finally finished a sweater! Four, actually. Granted, three were baby sweaters and one was only half a sweater, but they add up to at least a whole real sweater! Seriously, though, I made a conscious effort to experiment with different methods of sweater constuction: the froggie and truffle sweaters were done in the round from the bottom up, the cabled bookworm sweater was more traditional with separate, seamed pieces, and my purple 'banishing dark thoughts' cardigan was knit in a single piece from the top down.
My true love, as always, remains hat knitting: alpaca/silk 'Odessa', bulky burgundy ribbed, cashmerino mini-cabled, malabrigo ribbed cap, lamb's pride horseshoe lace, cashmere-merino 'Shedir', bluefaced leicester soft beret (seen folded), mohair/wool toque.
It's all wrapped up with an ipod cozy and an alpaca/silk neckwarmer for my mom.
I rarely take stock of my accomplishments, since it's more in my nature to be critical and self-deprecating (such is the lot of a graduate student). But I think that wrapping up the year in this way is a very positive practice!

Christmas knitting

This year I only knit two Christmas gifts: a hat for my sister and a neckwarmer for my mother. Both were small and simple but infused with deep love and affection.
(That's me on the left, wearing my mom's neckwarmer, and my sister on the right, wearing her hat and smoke ring.)
Hat details:
Malabrigo worsted merino in color 'Pagoda,' to match my sister's flared lace smoke ring. Knit on size 7 bamboo circular needle. Cast on 90 stitches, then K1 P1 until just about covered the head. Decreased in 9 segments (Row1: SSK,K9 around. Row2: SSK, K8 around. etc.). Consumed well under 1 skein.

Neckwarmer details:
Knitpicks Elegance in color 'Coal,' under 2 balls, on size 7 bamboo circular. Can't recall the details, since I was winging it! But basically, I knit a {P5 K1tbl} tube, flared it a bit at the bottom with some yo's, then did a row of single crochet at the flared bottom and a double row of single crochet at the top to decrease curling.

black blob

I haven't accomplished much in the last week. Cabled socks are at a standstill, since I turned the heel too late and am still too disappointed to rip it out. The bulk of my knitting activity was directed towards Christmas gifts, but this black blog is all I'm at liberty to reveal:
Mostly I've been up to yarn buying. Christmas has gotten me disturbingly consumerist, which is a state that I usually try to avoid. There's one funny anecdote about yarn buying that I planned to share, but I already wrote out the story once and then accidentally closed the window. I'll write it up again once the yarn arrives and I have an accompanying picture.

Last week before Christmas -- good luck to everyone's knitting fingers!

Flared lace smoke ring, basking in the sunset

The lace smoke ring is a delight. Once I memorized the pattern, it was a meditative pattern to knit. It's a beautiful and unusual piece to wear, whether worn as a dramatic collar or folded in half and tucked under a jean jacket. And it was even pleasing to photograph, which I did today in the gorgeous, warm glow of the waning sun.

Pattern: Flared Lace Smoke Ring by Heartstrings Fiber Arts
Yarn: Merino lace from handpaintedyarn.com, color "Pagoda," less than half a skein
Needles: size 6 Inox express 16" circulars

I departed from the pattern in three ways. First, the original pattern places a column of knit stitches in the middle of the sections that make the 'flare' at the bottom, which is to say in the middle of the breaks between the ribbed lace columns. I thought this looked messy and detracted from the lace, so instead I did straight purling for those breaks. You can see this best in the last picture.

Second, I thought the double YO's were too open, so I did single YO's after the first repeat. This meant that I did a purl into the front and a knit into the back of that single YO, rather than using a separate YO for each. This did make the knitting a little more fiddly, but I was pleased with the tighter result.

Finally, since there was zero probability of this being worn like a hood, I shortened the final length to about 13.5".

There was a point when I wished I'd chosen another yarn for this project, something with softer and more luxurious fibers like alpaca or silk. But the yarn softened and bloomed a bit after a soak in Eucalyn. And when I put it on, I realized that I liked the look of the crisp, sturdy fabric, rather than something slouchy and draped.

Tomorrow I'll lovingly pack this up and send it to my sister, who has been waiting for more than a year for me to knit this. But I'm so happy with it that I'm almost tempted to frame this last picture, which is dusky and purple-toned from the very last gasps of the sunset.

Rosemary Cornmeal Cookies

I'm waiting for a sunny morning to photograph the lace smoke ring, and in the meantime, here's a cookie recipe I whipped up this morning. They're meant to be a crumbly, textured, not-too-sweet cookie to dip into a cup of tea. Please let me know if you try it and tinker with it!

Rosemary Cornmeal Cookies

1 stick butter, softened (=1/2 cup)
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
1/2 cup ground flax seed
1 cup flour
1/2 cup cornmeal
1/4 tsp salt
2 tbsp pinenuts
1/4 tsp dried rosemary, crushed


Cream the butter and sugar. Stir in vanilla. Beat in the eggs. Add flax seed, flour, cornmeal, and salt, and mix well (it will be a rather firm dough). Stir in pine nuts and rosemary.

Drop by the spoonful onto a greased cookie sheet and bake at 350 F for 20 minutes, until starting to brown on edges. Makes 3 dozen small cookies.

Those are the basics. I just made this recipe up, and here's what I'd do next time around: add more rosemary, pinenuts, and salt, coarsely chop the pinenuts, and maybe take them out a little earlier so that they're a bit softer. You could add more butter and sugar if you wanted it to be more or a standard, sweet and indulgent cookie.

Movie Night

I've no illusion that my works in progress are of interest to anyone else. In an effort to make them more engaging to watch, here's what they look like as movie themes

I. Lost in Lace

A story about persistence and finding one's way, focused on the flared lace smoke ring. I'm a mere four inches from finishing it -- oh, so close the goal!! -- but I lost my momentum, and seemingly my way, when I'd put it aside for a week. I think I'm back on track again. But we'll see what adventures come along to sidetrack me.

II. The Curse of the Gauge Dragon

A tragic and mysterious saga about the sweater for Mountain Man. The gauge is cursed, I tell you, CURSED! Take 1, the sweater gauge was dreadfully bigger than the swatch gauge. Take 2, I tried a different stitch and a bigger swatch, but the sweater still exceeded all predictions. Take 3 -- supposed to be the charm -- I measured off of the Take 2 sweater and expected perfection. But somehow now it's turned out too small!

III. Circle of Bends

A sweet story of an Aran sock. It's a tale about growing up, trying new skills like toe-up socks and short-row heels, and eventually, hopefully, finding a true sock pattern to love. Plenty of predictable bends in the plot here: cabling, magic loop, and, very soon, a turned heel.

(p.s. In case it wasn't apparent, the movie names were plays on Lost in Space, Circle of Friends, and The Curse of the Jade Dragon)

Saturdye

Last Saturday, I revelled in the primitive-romanticism of open air natural dyeing: Dyepots simmering over an open fire. Blustery, November weather. The pungent aroma of black walnuts and marigolds. The magical transformation of petals, husks, and white wool into richly-colored skeins. Since the final simmering was done at night, it had a very dramatic, witchly feel -- stirring pots, prodding fires, while looking at the stars!

I followed the mordanting instructions from A Dyer's Garden. The dyeing itself, though, was done free-spirit-style, only roughly following the book's recipes (they didn't precisely fit to the state of my ingredients). I made up four dyebaths: black walnut, semi-fresh marigolds flowers, dried marigold petals, and dried calendula petals.

The latter two were smaller baths done in glass jars, while the former two were done in enamel pots. They simmered over the fire, between 180 and 220 degrees F, for a little over an hour. I tossed in the yarn, which is Knitpicks Bare, merino DK (unmordanted yarn for black walnut, mordanted for others). I simmered it for another hour at about 160, since the fire was dying down.

The next morning, I was quite eager to see what had developed, since I couldn't really see the colors the night before. I pulled out the yarns, squeezed out the excess dye, rinsed them in a little Eucalyn, and then dried them by the woodstove. Here's the results....

Left to right: black walnut, fresh marigold flowers, dried marigold petals, calendula, and undyed wool.

I didn't get nearly as dark a color from the black walnuts as I'd expected, especially given that that the dyebath was like the thicket, blackest ink imaginable. Perhaps it reached too high a temperature on the initial simmer? And the calendula turned out to have no dye at all - the dye in the pot looked pink because the liquid was deep red, but the final yarn is just dirty looking. On the whole, though I'm super happy - I like the light caramel color of the black walnut dye is lovely and warm, and the two marigolds are delightfully complex. I can't wait to start planning a garden full of dyeplants for next year...

blue socks, gray day

Nova Scotian Seascape Socks
Yarn:
Fleece Artist Merino Sock

Pattern:
Elizabeth Zimmerman's sock pattern with conventional heel from Knitting Without Tears

Details:
Sock is 2x2 ribbing, with stockinette sole. Started with 52 stitches.

Needles: Brittany 5 in birch dps, size 1.5 (US)

Nothing like some electric blue socks to brighten up a gray day!!

(Not that you can tell just how electric these are, but I promise that I did my best to capture all available natural light on this November morning. I'm sure my neighbors enjoyed the show of my feet out the window).

These socks make me HAPPY! They're beautiful and memory-evoking. The lovely, lovely yarn is shown off to its advantage with simple stitchwork, with the garter stitch details on the heel adding a bit of zip. My understanding is that this garter stitch heel border is unique to Zimmerman's sock patterns.
It's been a learning experience for me, since I know woefully little about knititng socks. There is, however, a bit of irony here: my only previous socks were a pair of Jaywalkers, which fit like a dream without any swatching, sizing, or cognition on my part. These socks, for which I carefully swatched and thought hard, are a little off. The leg is too short (I was trying to be conservative to avoid running out of yarn); heel a little too tight, toes a little constricting.

But please don't take this for complaining - I'm genuinely happy with these socks and just trying to lay the groundwork for figuring out what I learned from them. I will surely try this pattern again, and I now know that I should: 1. cast on a few more stitches, 2. anticipate that the top will shorten once they socks are on and the fabric is stretched out, 3. turn the heel with the method from the Jaywalker socks, and 4. maybe - just maybe - increase a stitch or two when it gets to the widest part of my toes (seen below).

I do need advice on one thing, though. For those of you with greater sock knitting experience, what would you recommend for lengthening the leg of the sock once they're finished? Would crochet be elastic enough? How weird would it look to pick up the cast-on and then knit upwards? Can I unpick the cast-on edge?

I can already feel myself being pulled into the gravity of sock knitting....

Bad Kitty

Ah, Monday mornings. Gray skies, jarring alarms, anxiety about work. Pull myself out of bed and am confronted with this!! (and this is just a small piece of it all)
So THAT'S what the cat was doing at 4 am, when she was making a tremendous racket and disturbing my sleep. I gape at the tangle of mohair then turn around to look back at Leila, still curled up on in bed.
Bad Kitty! And she doesn't look the least bit remorseful.

discouragement and recovery

Discouragement comes easily to me. This post isn't about the discouragement, though, so much as about the renewal of hope and patience.

This week I'd been discouraged about the community spirit of modern America, largely for reasons that I won't go into here. But the final straw was that someone stole the big terracotta pot of mint that I had growing on my front stoop (here's the summer savory that survived and is now inside). This was truly disturbing. Stealing herbs on a lark exhibits terrible insensitivity and pettiness; in some ways this mode of stealing because it's convenient or fun or 'there' is even more morally disturbing than stealing for economic reasons. I'm especially upset because the herbs that I grow in Cambridge are my tangible, everyday reminder of my garden in Vermont and my 'real life' there.*

But my sense of patient hopefulness was renewed last night with the election. Democracy in action can be an exciting experience. Still waiting for the results, but I'm feeling optimistic.

Anyways, that's really what was on my mind last night and this morning. But I do have a little knitting content too. As with other projects in life, I get easily discouraged when my knitting isn't going well. It's one reason why I often have half a dozen projects going at once and why I still haven't gotten up the nerve to graft the toes on those socks. This weekend, I was getting discouraged about my lace. I made a subtle enough mistake that I didn't notice it until I'd finished an entire repeat, which had to be gingerly ripped out. Yet somehow I'm keeping myself focused on this one project, and I've fixed the mistakes and am moving forward. Hope and patience.

*For those new to this blog, my main home is with my husband (Mountain Man) in Vermont, but as a grad student I have to be in Cambridge, Massachusetts during the week. That's also why my photos alternate between lovely, landscape-rich outdoor photos and cramped, indoor close-ups.

Ends and Beginnings

Beautiful morning sunlight again. Seen basking in it are the Fleece Artist socks that I'd meant to finish for Socktoberfest (I wasn't officially a part of it, but it's like running unregistered in a marathon). The knitting was finished by Monday, so I could've grafted the toes and worn them for Halloween. But, oh, the mental block that goes with grafting for me. Also, I made them a wee bit too small, and once I finish them and try to wear them, I'll have to own up to my mistake. Hopefully they'll be done by next Monday:
But my new project has me in tingles. It's a "Flared Lace Smoke Ring" in handpaintedyarn laceweight, colorway "Pagoda." Initially started for my sister last winter. But I wasn't fond of the lace pattern, so I ripped it out and put it away. Last week I swatched several alternative lace patterns for it. The tricky thing, though, is to find a lace pattern that looks good even when it can't be blocked well. Back to the original it was, and I'm enjoying it this time with just a few modifications. Look at that lovely shadow halo!
The motivation to restart this is that I'm headed to DC to visit my sister this weekend. Hope you all have a delightful weekend too!

swatches

My knitpicks order arrived last week -- marvelous! Yarnwise, there's 'bare' DK merino for experimentation with natural dyes and 'burgundy' gloss for socks. The merino was much softer than I'd expected. And the color of the Gloss is sensational, shifting from a mauve to a brick red depending on the light.

Along with the yarn came some needles, which were promptly put to swatching use. These are for Mountain Man's sweater. Naturally, his favorite is the stockinette, but I refuse to knit a sweater that could just as well be purchased at J.Crew. It'll still be raglan-sleeve, roll-neck, and mostly stockinette, but it'll be spruced up with a stripe of the branched travelling stitch pattern along each sleeve.

The gloss swatch was even yummier. The idea is to have a 2x2 ribbed sock with the four-stitch aran braid down the instep. You may notice some strange black blobs in the photos above. Leila, as usual, insisted on getting herself in the middle of things. There was just a sliver of morning sunshine, and I could hardly move the whole operation.