The year is winding down

My company has all left this morning and things are going to get back to normal - or at least our version of normal.  We didn't have 20 for dinner last night, only 17.  It was a blast - I highly recommend honey baked ham.  Makes life much easier for the hostess and they sell turkey breasts too.  We had a lot of kids this year and I played Wii Fit with them.  So much fun but I'm hoarse from cheering them on.

My exciting news of the day is that I set myself up as a designer on Ravelry this morning and posted my Mosaic Dish Towel pattern there as a free download.  I have a couple of other designs in process and one submitted for a publication - hope to hear soon on it.  So I have crossed something off my to-do list for the year in time.

I haven't made my resolutions or plans yet for next year but am thinking about them.  We'll see if I am bold enough to publish them here for all to see and hold me accountable.

Work in Progress Wednesday

Not too much different on the needles right now.   The dish towel is in the seemingly endless plain stockinette stitch part, so no pictures of that.  You would say, has she done anything since last week?  The truthful answer - not much.  I'm also starting to play with a lace scarf and beads but not far enough along to show it.

So that leaves the Aran sweater I'm designing for the final project for Level three Master Knitter.  At this point I know I want to do a cardigan (I live in TX for heavens sake, we just passed the record for most days over 100 F in a year with 55 days and there is no end in sight).  I'd like to do it in one piece from the bottom up, with set in sleeves.  Not sure if I will do saddle sleeves and I need to decide on the neckline.

This is the biggest swatch so far.  It is actually too big for a front of the cardigan.  I'm thinking that I will eliminate the middle diamond and bobble.  That would make the edge diamond the center of the cardigan, then the Saxon braid and then the little coin cable.  Cheating and just folding the fabric over to hide the second diamond it would look like this:

Hmm, when I was knitting it I thought that would be okay, but now I'm not so sure.  What do you think?  Does the Saxon Braid need something more angular to each side?

I am happy with the ribbing below the Saxon braid, though I may take out a couple of purl stitches in the ribbing to tighten it up.  I have to work on the Diamond ribbing.

So there is plenty more work to do on this.  I've run out of yarn and ordered more in two different colors so my next swatching will also be testing colors.

To see all the great fiber projects in progress, go to Tami's