• Cruise to Alaska with JC Briar and me aboard a Craft Cruise scheduled for September 6-13, 2009! We promise it will be full of knitting and great fun!
• NEW: I'll be teaching at the Spring Knit & Crochet Show in Portland, OR
  on May 14-16!
• NEW: I'll be teaching at Threadbear FiberArts June 27-28!

March 31, 2009: Order Order Order

I ordered the DVD duplicating run today. I should have some in about two weeks. Once again, I find myself wishing for 24 more hours in the day. This has taken way too long.

I also have a contract sitting on my desk for another print run of the Aran book. It always makes me a tad nervous to be outlaying this kind of cash, but I am down to two cases. And orders are still coming in. I cannot allow this book to be out of stock for too long. I asked the printer for a quote for a smaller run, but it wouldn't have saved me more than a couple thousand dollars.

And I am running out of finishing books, which means ordering another print run of that one . . . but I'd really like to redo it in InDesign, make it a digitally downloadable e-book, and add some more material and pictures. I cannot figure out how to make that work unless I stop sleeping or hire someone to drive my children all the places they need to be. DD#1 wanted to drive to school today, but she (very wisely) got to the elementary school, parked her truck, and got on the high school bus for the rest of the trip. She called and said the roads were just too dicey. She has a meeting after school so now I will need to run in and pick her up.

I'm going to go knit for a while and contemplate my schedule.

March 30, 2009: It Was a Wicked Band Tour

Before we left on band tour, the husband remarked that it looked like the 43 year-old ex-band member mother was a lot more excited about the trip than the kid was. Part of that was because DD#1 was feeling the pressure (again) from her teachers about missing school (I just sent the principal an e-mail about that) and part of it was because yes—I was excited! I cannot help myself. Band was the very best part of my high school years and I want my kids to have that same experience.

I think we succeeded. I asked DD#1 if she was glad she went on band tour and she said she was. This is a particularly great group of kids. I thought they did a stellar job of representing themselves and the school. The only "discipline" problem we had was a group of four boys who cooked themselves pancakes in their hotel room one night. Amazingly, they had enough foresight to bring along one of those Bisquick Shake 'n Pour bottles and some chocolate chips, so when good fortune stuck them in kitchenette room, they were all prepared!

In four days we did Spokane (a performance and laser tag), Seattle (a band clinic and shopping—I found a dress for my sister's wedding); Seaside, OR (the ocean and a lot of rain); and finished up in Portland with dinner at a fancy restaurant and the musical "Wicked" on Saturday night. Oh my, was that ever a great performance. Some of those kids have never been to anything like that. It was fun to see them enjoying it. Part of the reason we went to "Wicked" is because they are doing a medley of pieces from the musical at their next concert. And now it will be much more meaningful for them.

I got quite a lot of knitting done, what with all that bus time. I'm excited about the Pure Pima design. It's a top-down saddle-shoulder sweater, but I did something new and novel with the saddles. I was a bit nervous because I was designing on the fly—on a trip, no less—but I'm quite pleased with it. And DD#1's friend finished his hat just as we pulled into Portland.

While in Portland, I went to Powell's (of course) and snagged a hard cover copy of my favorite knitting book All Sweaters in Every Gauge by Barbara Goldstein. I have the paperback version, too. It was such a critical book in my development as a knitting designer that I don't mind having two copies, just in case.

March 26, 2009: Going On (Band) Tour

Well, I feel much better now that I've had time to work on my stuff. I think I do a remarkable job balancing all of my responsibilities, but every so often I need to remind the people around me that knitting is my job, not a cute little hobby that I took up to relieve stress.

Do any of the rest of you read Franklin's blog? I really enjoy his wit and his cartoons. His blog post today, though, made me really sad—for him, especially, but also for the poor narrow-minded woman with whom he had the conversation. Maybe one of these days the world can get past this kind of stuff. I could do a whole post on annoying gender stereotypes, but this will be a short blog post because . . .

. . . in two short hours the bus pulls out and I will be officially on band tour with DD#1. I am looking forward to approximately 28 hours of knitting time. I told the husband last night that what I find really funny about this trip is that not only am I packing enough knitting for me, I also threw in an extra project for a friend of DD#1's (a boy, incidentally) who's been knitting since Christmas. He's been working on a hat and I am pretty sure he'll finish it on the first leg of the trip. I brought something else that I think he'll enjoy making.

I'll probably have pictures when I get back.

March 24, 2009: Mini-Meltdowns

Mondays are typically a really busy day for me and yesterday was no exception. I subbed at the school, then waited after school for DD#1 to get off the high school bus there so I could drop her off at our church, where she works at the after-school child care program. DD#2 and I ran home, grabbed a quick dinner, said hello to the husband, and then we got in the truck and headed out again. I dropped her and the daughter of a friend of ours off at ballet, went back to the church, waited for DD#1 to finish working, then took her home. I was home for about 45 minutes, and then I had to run back up to the church to meet our friend who retrieves DD#2 from ballet with his daughter (the one I pick up and take to ballet).

[Ballet is about 12 miles away, the church is about 5 miles, and the school is approximately 7 miles. The fire hall is a mere 3 miles as the crow flies, but to drive there is about 8 miles. Doesn't sound like much until you have to make the circuit two or three times.]

Monday night is also the night for auction meetings. During that 45-minute span when I was home, the head of the auction planning committee called and wanted to know if I was coming to the meeting. I've been to a grand total of one auction meeting so far this year—because of all the traveling I've been doing, I turned my usual auction duties over to someone else (they've done a great job), so I wasn't planning on going to last night's meeting. The husband has gone to all of them and filled me in on what I need to know as Assistant to the Logistics Section Chief (the husband is Logistics Section Chief).

The auction is in a state of flux right now because the fire department is in the process of turning the whole operation over to a group of community members. The head of the committee is (to his credit) trying to manage that transition process, and wanted to meet with me, the current head of finance, and another woman from our fire department who is taking over finance next year (finance is one area that will always be handled by those of us on the department). She and I have already talked and I said I would be happy to work with her on it. She's a smart cookie with a lot of good ideas.

I kind of let loose on this poor guy when he called. I was so tired, I'm leaving on another trip this week, and all I wanted to do after a day at the germ factory was have a glass of wine and sit down and knit, not go to a meeting to talk about something that isn't going to happen for another 379 days. One thing I've learned is that volunteer organizations will suck the life out of you if you let them, and as committed as I am to my volunteer efforts, I've had to draw some boundary lines or my life will consist of nothing but meetings (even though I get a lot of knitting done during meetings, it's not my preferred method of working). I feel like I am being pecked apart a piece at a time—everyone wants something from me.

So I told this guy what I thought (apparently a little too stridently, given the looks I was getting from the husband during the conversation) and said I would be happy to meet with him about finance after this year's auction. I really needed to knit last night, just for my own sanity. I picked DD#2 up, came home, poured myself a glass of wine, watched some Bones episodes on the DVR, and worked on the Pure Pima sweater.

And today I am in my office. Hooray.

March 21, 2009: Dear Isaac

A good 50% of the clothing in my closet has the Liz Claiborne label on it, and that's because (at least up until now) it's well-made and it fits. I can pull a pair of size 10 Audra pants off the rack and buy them without trying them on. And last season, the Liz line included 100% cotton jeans in long sizes. I was beside myself. Non-stretch jeans AND long lengths! Hooray!

It was a sad day when I went to the department store the other day and looked at the new line of Liz clothing. The jeans have spandex in them. Isaac, how could you do this to me? I was excited to find out you were now the design director at Liz Claiborne. I love your stuff (I bought a lot of it when you designed for Target). However, as much as I love you, that's How Much I Hate Spandex. A lot. And now where am I going to get 100% cotton jeans in a size 10 long? I may just have to go back to wearing Wranglers. The husband hopes I won't, because he wears Wranglers and it just causes too much confusion in the laundry. I can't tell you how many times he reached for a pair of Wranglers only to discover they were mine. (Want to see something funny?—watch the husband trying to get a pair of my Wranglers onto his body.)

Sometimes I really hate the clothing industry.

Prom went off without a hitch. I was allowed to come with DD#1 and take pictures when she met her date (at a friend's house). They made a very cute couple. The group of 10 kids went out to dinner and then to the high school. I am pretty sure everyone got home safely; the husband went and picked her up at midnight and he said that it was really foggy out, but I didn't hear any dispatches for car accidents.

[We're not opposed to this young man picking up DD#1 and driving her somewhere; it's just that we live so far out that we hate to ask kids to do any unnecessary driving. And he lives only a few blocks from the high school, so it would have been a lot of driving for him.]

DD#1 was all smiles when she got home. I'm sure I'll get a detailed recap this afternoon. She has band practice at 2 p.m. for a concert they are giving on Tuesday. I wonder if it's going to be a fairly subdued practice with a lot of tired kids?

The snow is going away at a fairly rapid pace now that it has warmed up. I noticed a robin flying around the house yesterday, and suddenly it dawned on me that he (she?) was scoping out the porch rafters for a good nesting place. We're going to need to be vigilant in keeping them from building up there. I love to see the babies but so do Rusty and Chester—and not for the same reason. The pileated woodpeckers are also here. And in a couple of weeks or so it will be time to fill the hummingbird feeders. I do love birds.

One of the things on my list today is deciding what to do about that project using the Pure Pima yarn. We leave on band tour later this week and there will be significant bus knitting time. I want to take advantage of it. I haven't been doing as much knitting as I'd like to and my hands miss it.

March 20, 2009: Burning Out a Design

Quick earring report: Still good. I even forget I have them in until someone comments on the fact that I have things sticking out of my earlobes.

So one of the knitting lists I still read (I quit all but three of them a few months ago) is in the throes of a discussion of the new Elise Duvekot book Knit One Below. For those of you who haven't seen it, it's a book exploring the fun of stitch patterns which are created by knitting stitches in the row below (the most recognizable of which is Brioche stitch).

Some of you may know that Nancy Marchant has done an extensive amount of work with Brioche stitch (although she favors the yo-decrease method, not the knit-in-the-row-below method) and the question was posed: does Nancy—due to the body of work she's done—"own" Brioche stitch? (And the word "own" is in quotes for a reason, as no one can really "own" a stitch.)

Let's leave that discussion aside for a moment. What really intrigued me was a poster's musing about the possibility that certain stitch patterns/garment shapes/design elements that have become so used and associated with a particular person that they've become "burned out." In other words, anyone who attempts to design using those stitch patterns/garment shapes/design elements risks looking like a copycat unless they can put some kind of new and original spin on them.

I wonder about this, too, and there are often design ideas I consider and reject simply because I don't want someone to look at them and say, "Oh—so yesterday!" (I also reject a lot of ideas because I think they are too simplistic and then someone else does something similar and it goes on to be a smashingly successful pattern . . .)

Being a designer isn't simply about coming up with designs. It's about coming up with do-able, market-able designs. Wearing out a stitch pattern is something I struggle with a lot. For example, I think one of the most overused cable patterns out there is the Saxon Braid:

This is a design I did for Cast-On about 10 years ago. I havn't decided whether or not to re-issue it; it's been knitted up in a new yarn but I hate to toss Yet Another Saxon Braid Design out there. It's like the font Papyrus, which was new and cutting-edge when layout designers began using it, but now it's everywhere and—quite frankly—it has worn out its welcome.

Thoughts?

We're actually having sunshine here on the first official day of spring. It's been staying in the 40s and 50s here of late. I am holding out hope that spring will not tarry: the snow is mostly gone in town, there are birds in my yard again, and our driveway is no longer a skating rink. We need a couple of really warm days (think 60s and 70s) before enough snow melts here that I can get into my garden, but I actually feel like looking at seed catalogs and planning what I want to put in.

DD#1's prom date has been sick this week, but he came in after school today just to let her know that he's feeling better and plans to be completely well by tomorrow evening. They are going out to dinner with a group of friends, then to the dance. One of us is going to drop DD#1 off tomorrow and will get to meet this young man in person—I think it's going to be me, because the consensus seems to be that the husband would scare the poor boy to death. We don't really want to ruin DD#1's evening, (well, I don't).

March 19, 2009: Maybe I CAN Wear Earrings Again!

You might remember that back in November, I tried to get my body to accept the idea of wearing earrings—titanium ones, which are supposed to be one of the least allergenic metals out there. The experiment lasted 24 hours, at which point I had to take the earrings out because they were making my ears itch and bleed. A few weeks ago I stuck them in again (reminds me of that definition of insanity: doing the same the over and over hoping for a different result), and they made my ears itch and bleed within ten minutes.

I really really really want to wear earrings. I just don't feel dressed up without them. And I'd like a nice pair to wear for my sister's wedding in May (along with a dress, but that's another story). Last week I was surfing the web and found Wear Earrings Again With Maggie's Creations. Maggie is a jeweler in Florida who has severe allergies to most jewelry. She's done a tremendous amount of research and experimentation, and her theory is that there are many of us who aren't allergic to pure metals, but are actually allergic to alloys of those metals. As she notes on her website, "An alloy is the mixture or solid solution of two or more metallic elements or metallic and nonmetallic elements. In jewelry, combining different metals is commonly done to augment the color, hardness and/or luster of the resulting alloy."

She cites research which shows that patients who had trouble with titanium implants (which are alloyed) had no reaction whatsoever to pure titanium metal. She concludes, "For me, it was simple . . . if you can wear a pure element, but not an alloy that contains no nickel, you have an alloy allergy, not a nickel allergy; in other words, you are allergic to the electrochemical reaction that happens between dissimilar metals—not the metals themselves."

Well, that explains it, at least for me. I can't wear jewelry that claims to be "nickel-free," and apparently the titanium earrings I bought last fall were alloyed, not pure titanium. I have an alloy allergy, not a metal allergy.

I ordered a pair of "healing" earrings—simple non-alloyed titanium balls—and they arrived yesterday. I cleaned my ears and put them in immediately. It's now been 24 hours and I don't know they are there! There is no itching, no bleeding, nothing. I am cautiously optimistic that these earrings are going to work—and I've ordered a pair for DD#2, who has the same problem I do. Maggie is a very talented jeweler and has many styles of earrings for sale on her website, so if these work, I will order some to go with my dress for the wedding.

I've read all your comments from yesterday and it's good to know that others of you are also having knitting slump issues. Raye, I love the gold socks that Wendy is blogging about right now—gorgeous! I spent most of yesterday working on knitting-related computer and paperwork stuff (no actual knitting), and by the end of the day I was feeling a bit more ready to jump in and figure out what project I want to work on. I've decided it's rather like writer's block—just doing it is the best way to break through it. I've been so distracted by other stuff over the past two months that it's no wonder I can't keep my mind on task.

March 18, 2009: My Knitting Has Gone South

I realize there has been a dearth of blog posts this month. I feel like I don't have anything interesting to share with you, especially about knitting. My mojo seems to have gotten fed up waiting for spring and has gone to warmer climates without me. There are also about a dozen different areas of my life competing loudly for attention at the moment. As a result, knitting has gotten shoved to the back burner. I am not inspired by any of my knitting projects at the moment, which makes it doubly difficult to move them from the back burner to a front one.

I did finish the corn scarf last night. It was close to being done and finishing it makes me feel like I am making some progress. However, I need to get another sweater done and I am just not loving the one I started before I went to Wisconsin. I love the yarn and stitch pattern, but the sweater is coming out smaller than I anticipated. That annoys me because this is Iteration #2—I ripped out Iteration #1 after wondering if it would be too big. Once again I am reminded of what I already know: go with my first instincts. So now I need to decide if I should continue with Iteration #2, go back to Iteration #1, or start something else altogether.

[Probably as a result of yesterday being St. Patrick's Day, I am itching to start an Aran. Go figure.]

Other things that are happening here:

• DD#1 is going to prom this weekend. Her date's mother is a knitter. That's about all we know about him.
• DD#2 took first place in the science fair and goes on to the county competition next week. Her project was "Interference and the Stroop Effect" which has to do with how people perceive information.
• The husband seems to be the only builder still working in the Flathead Valley. Here is a link to an interesting article if you want to read more.
• The mountain lion whose tracks the husband saw a couple of weeks ago has been sighted in a few other areas, too, but it seems to be staying several miles north of us and that's just fine.
• There was 2" of new snow on my truck this morning. And Friday is the first day of spring.

I don't have to go anywhere today (you have no idea how happy that makes me), so I plan to spend the whole day working on nothing but knitting. I am hoping to find some inspiration at the bottom of the pile of stuff on my desk. Wish me luck.

March 14, 2009: Back in the Groove

As much as I enjoyed the trip to Wisconsin, I am really glad it's over. I had to do a lot of pep-talking to myself before I went. Any group that brings me in as a teacher deserves to have 100% of my focus and the absolute best of me as an instructor, and I was worried that I wasn't going to be up to the task. Perhaps it's because the Wisconsin trip came so closely on the heels of the Europe trip (with a band trip thrown in). Perhaps it's because I am so acutely aware of how much work isn't getting done when I am elsewhere. Perhaps it's because I felt guilty for leaving the husband with so much extra responsibility just as the spring building season is ratcheting up. Whatever. It was a difficult trip to prepare for mentally and it's a relief to have it behind me.

The night before I left for Wisconsin, we got paged out to a chimney fire which turned into a structure fire. Normally that wouldn't be all that noteworthy, except that last weekend was the semi-annual Montana Mutual Aid meeting in Helena. We have a running joke in our department about mutual aid, because the last four times that our chief and assistant chief have been out-of-town at a mutual aid meeting or event, we've had a structure fire. With them gone, the job of incident command falls to our very capable deputy fire chief.

No matter what the incident, fire-fighting is a dangerous business. If we were part of any other department, I might worry considerably more about the husband when he's inside a burning building. I still worry, but I also know that our incident commanders have our firefighters' backs. I thought our deputy chief did a great job. He had to size up the fire, decide how to fight it, call for additional resources from three surrounding departments, and deal with a frantic homeowner, all in the dark and in a small snowstorm. The husband—after creating a new driveway for the homeowner with one of our engines because access to the property was limited—headed up an interior attack crew.

We spent a good hour at our business meeting the other night doing a post-mortem on the fire. It's such a good training exercise (for all of us, not just the rookie FF's), to go over what we did and what—if anything—we could have done differently. The fact that we saved this house from total destruction is huge and reflects the amount of training our department does.

So. I caught up on paperwork yesterday and got some knitting projects a bit closer to completion. And I have a date with the husband this morning. The first target shooting match of the year is today and I am going to go watch for a bit. Then it's off to do some errand-running in town. I was going to print newsletter renewal notices yesterday and the laser printer cartridge gave out (the color laser printing obligingly tells me when it's about to run out of ink, but the B&W laser printer simply stops printing with no warning). I didn't have a spare cartridge on hand, so I need to pick one up today.

March 12, 2009: Knitting and Eating in Wisconsin

I got back at noon today from a visit to the Madison, WI area, where I taught at a workshop organized by the lovely and dynamic Ruth Sybers (she puts people half her age to shame with her energy and enthusiasm). I was so pleased that Ruth limits her workshops to 15 knitters, and all three classes (Infinitely Interesting Cables, Cables and Beyond, and Colorizing Cables) went extremely well. I also spoke at the Monday night meeting of the Madison Knitters Guild and that was a lot of fun.

I have to say that I was rather blown away by the food in Wisconsin. I ate very well. In fact, I put back on three of the five pounds I lost in Europe—but it was worth it. I love cheese, and what better place for a cheese-lover than Wisconsin? There was cheese at every meal, in lots of variations. Also, Ruth's daughter and son-in-law own a restaurant—The Dining Room—and I got to sample a few of the restaurant's wonderful dishes. The chocolate tart with raspberry sauce (the recipe is at the website) was particularly wonderful. Ruth is a great hostess.

So after I get my suitcase unpacked (again) and the laundry done (again) and the house cleaned (again), I'll try to get back to regular blogging, at least until the next trip, which is band tour in a couple of weeks. Yay!—more uninterrupted hours of knitting time. And for that trip, I should have some pictures.

March 6, 2009: Whitefish Winter Classic

The 5th and 6th grade classes were guests at the Whitefish Winter Classic today, and I went along to chaperone. This is an annual fundraiser to help kids in the Flathead Valley with medical expenses. We took the chairlift up to the Summit House at the top of Big Mountain:

You can see what a gorgeous (although cold) day it was. The chairlift is always fun.I got a couple of nice landscape shots from the top of Big Mountain. This is looking northeast into Glacier National Park:

This shot is looking south into the Flathead Valley. See that line of mountains to the left side of the picture? Our house is down at the base of those mountains (close to the very south end of them).

And here is a second shot looking out over the Flathead Valley. It really was a stunning day, and judging by the number of skiers, it looked like a good day for the fundraising effort, too.

We had lunch courtesy of the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad (which, I found out, is the 5th largest employer in the state of Montana). All in all a very enjoyable day.

March 5 , 2009: Lions and Tigers . . .

The husband is caretaker for a place up the road a ways—it's at a much higher elevation than our house and more remote. He visits once a week in the winter and takes pictures to send to the owner. This week's pics included this shot:

Those are mountain lion tracks along the side of the garage. Amazingly, in 15 years of living here, a mountain lion is the one animal I've never seen on our property (and that's perfectly fine with me). I know they are out there. I just try not to think about it too much and my kids have never been allowed to be out in the yard by themselves, especially around dusk.

The husband always takes his gun with him when he goes to check on the property, so I don't worry about him (as much).

I woke up with a wicked headache this morning; my neck and upper back are all tied in knots. I had to cancel a massage Monday in order to go on the band trip and I wasn't able to reschedule it this week. It will have to wait until I get back from Wisconsin. I'll just have to be more vigilant about my stretching exercises in the meantime.

March 4, 2009: The Wheels on the Bus

On Sunday afternoon we loaded 37 kids and two adults (the band director and me) onto a bus and headed for Missoula. Two hours later we unloaded at one of the Missoula high schools, practiced, then went to the motel.

On Monday morning we were back at the high school, where we joined the bands from the three Missoula schools and the Helena high school for AA band festival. The kids were divided into two large bands, each with a guest conductor. They practiced all day Monday, gave a concert Monday night (each individual band), practiced all day yesterday, and gave another concert last night (each massed band). The kids worked hard and did a wonderful job.

My job was to keep an eye out for anything amiss. Monday was relatively uneventful. I got a lot of knitting done while I sat and listened to the kids rehearse. Yesterday was a bit busier because we had a couple of kids come down with some kind of stomach bug. But we got through the programs and loaded the kids onto the bus for the two-hour ride home.

We succeeded in getting everyone loaded before 9 p.m.—meaning that if all went well, we'd be back at our high school by 11:30 p.m. and home by midnight. Unfortunately, the bus got a flat tire halfway between Missoula and Kalispell. We had to wait for a replacement bus to come down from Kalispell, then transfer all the luggage and instruments to that bus. It was 1:30 a.m. when we finally pulled in to the high school parking lot, and 2:00 a.m. when DD#1 and I got home.

To add inult to injury, the poor kid had to be back at the school by 7:30 a.m. to take a make-up biology test.

So I'm off to take a shower and attempt to transform myself back into a human being. I apologize for the lame drive-by blogging. It's mostly to let everyone know I am still here.

March 1, 2009: March-ing Along

I really do try not to push time, because I think it goes fast enough. For example, I am having trouble figuring out where I misplaced February. How can it be March already?

Of course, March is just a month on the calendar. I just looked at the weather forecast for the next two weeks and it's calling for near-constant precipitation, mostly in the form of snow—because apparently the 4' we have in the yard right now isn't enough.

There are several competing lists floating around on my desk at the moment, one for each different part of my life. I have a list of knitting-related items (Cables 2, DVD, teaching contracts, class materials, renewal notices for T&T); one for the kids (fill out lunch forms and permission slips, order DD#2's ballet suit for her performance, get DD#1's prom dress altered); one for the husband (restock the pantry, pay construction company bills and send invoices, write out DD#2's schedule for him again); and one for all the other miscellany I have to take care of (get more dog food, find a dress for my sister's wedding, bring my four-month whiteboard calendar up-to-date, go pick up Girl Scout cookies and get them delivered) . . . it's kind of comforting in its own way to have it all laid out in black and white.

The kids and I cleaned yesterday and then I sat down to knit during a five-hour marathon of all the "Bones" episodes on DVR. I started a sweater for the Summer issue of Twists and Turns in a very pretty new yarn called Pure Pima from Berroco. I wish I had picked a lighter shade (I'm using Walnut), but the yarn is a dream to work with—and I'm not a big fan of cotton.

And this design is just flowing out of my head effortlessly, unlike the project I sent to my test-knitter last month that had me tearing my hair out during the planning stage. This design began with a stitch pattern that morphed into a different stitch pattern during the swatching stage. Then I realized that it looked much better upside-down, making it perfect for a top-down design. Originally I thought I might repeat the stitch pattern over the entire body of the sweater. Looking at the swatch, though, I think it will work better in a gansey-style placement, where the stitch patterning is confined to the upper bodice. And it's going to be a boat neck, set-in sleeve pullover. I've got one boat neck sweater that I just love. I know it's not a style for everyone, but it's what I see in my head for this design.

I got the sweater underway yesterday and it will be my knitting for the band trip, along with the corn scarf that is almost done. Let's see how far I get!

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