No Finishing (Almost) Knitting

First, thank you to all who have supported me in this time of loss. It's been exhausting, what with a new job, extra training for my very part time water fitness teaching. I am surviving, barely. But onto the knitting!

I love Elizabeth Zimmermann. The woman was a genius, and my only regret is that only recently did I find her books and start into her wonderful world. I can't figure out how, having knit for so long, I managed to miss her.

So, I've been plugging away at a sweater for afghans for afghans for a while. I used her percentage system, and while the first one I did came out a bit squirrly, this one is going beautifully. You knit bottom up, in the round, do the sleeves (which I did at the same time on two circulars, so that they would match for once), connect it all together for the yoke. Brilliant, the woman was brilliant!

I changed the bottom ribbing from this


to this




because the ribbing didn't go with this yoke that I created (notes on this are on my Ravelry project page):



I have to say that I really, really like how this turned out, and since I'm not a yoke-sweater kind of girl, this is saying a lot!

When you cast off this sweater, the best part is that it looks like a sweater! The only "seams" are a total of two small sets of stitches to graft at the underarms:



and then all I have left is weaving in ends (yes, some of it occured in the knitting, but not all of it).

Next up, a sweater for my little cousin it's Ariann (ravelry link) from Chic Knits in Berrocco's Ultra Alpac. I knit her sister Allison a sweater for her birthday, and now it's time for Rachel to get one. She picked this pattern out of three cardigan patterns that I gave her to choose. I may make one for myself after I finish hers -- it's cute! Now I have to get her on the phone to find out her bust measurement to know what size to make...20 somethings can be hard to reach. Anybody know how to text?

The other project is part of the Ravelympics -- I'm captain of the Afghans for Afghans team, and I'm entered in the sweater sprint with another sweater for Afghans for Afghans -- I got some wool superwash when I was down in LA on one of my trips at the San Marino store A Stitch in Time.) I think this one will be a top-down raglan cardigan in the round.