Long Post With Reward At End

As you can see, I've begun swatching for yet another project. This time, it's Colleen's Bell Sleeved sweater pattern (click on larger image in the sidebar of the main page for the actual pattern), which I've aptly dubbed The Subway Sweater (hehe). I decided to try a cotton version, using Jo Sharp Soho Summer DK Cotton.

I LOVE this stuff. It's soft, drapes well and the colors are fabulous. Of course, this means that not only do I have to make adjustments in the pattern to accommodate my smaller cleavedge, BUT, I pretty much have to recalculate the entire thing because of my desire to use the DK instead of the Aran weight.

No worries, though. I'm using this as a "learning experience [chuckles where appropriate]."

In any case, I love this color -- Carmen -- and was giddy with excitement upon purchasing a full bag (am I the only one who loves the way a full bag of yarn balls looks?). I did worry about the cotton and it's assorted issues, and I probably should've gone with the aran weight since it has Microfiber mixed in, but I was assured that this stuff would be fine. And, if it isn't. I guess I can always rip it out.

Now, the reason I decided to start swatching for a new project, is because I was on the last leg of Cool Cagoule and I wanted to work on something that would be appropriate to wear at work. And, even though I still have Half-Pint and Kyoto on the needles, I wanted another sweater I was as excited about as Cool Cagoule.

That being said, Cool Cagoule ran into a bit of a snafu.

As you can see, I had to resort to charting out the sleeve pattern. Somewhere in the pattern, things go awry and it immediately begins to do very bad things to itself. At first I thought it was because I began the sleeves late in the evening (never a good idea). But, after starting over three times and going over the pattern with Natalie (the owner of my LYS and master knitter extraordinaire), it was clear there was an error.

From what I can gather, the problem arises in the first row of increases. I think there should be three instead of two to accomodate the cable in the next row. There also seem to be some errors at the ends of the rows. Of course, this is all my best guess after working up a few charts. I Googled and emailed and searched the internet far-and-wide for any mentions of Cool Cagoule and sleeve issues -- to no avail. The charts were my last resort, and Natalie's suggestion.

So, this is what I've come up with:

I'm hoping I'm on the right track and plan to check with Natalie tomorrow evening at my Knitting Clinic. Until then, Cool Cagoule is on hold and hardcore knitting math (for me, anyway) commences this evening on The Subway Sweater.

Phew!

As a reward for sticking it through this tediously long post about errors and swatching, I'll leave you with these two shots of the doggies I had the pleasure of hanging out with this weekend:

This is Hazel May, my cousin's adorable Boxer pup. She's achingly cute with her simultaneous fear and aggression toward the doll we unearthed for her to play with. She hid behind me the entire time while barking fiercely (well, as fiercly as a puppy can bark) at it. Hehe.

And, of course, Rosie The Dog. I saw her this weekend at the family gathering hosted by my step-sister. She is pictured in her raincoat with her human, Lindsey (my step-niece, who is hiding) much to her dismay. She has an unnatural fear of the noise my camera makes as I turn it on. The raincoat was just for effect. Normally, she runs around "au natural." We just felt like amusing ourselves.

Poor Rosie. Hehe.