knitting projects!

I have been wanting to get back into the game for a while, but I was inspired to start up the ol' blog again when a friend who has only recently gotten into knitting asked me if I had any pictures of my projects.  I found myself feeling overwhelmed at the very thought of all the unfinished projects I have lying around my apartment, but I decided it was high time I pull them all out of their boxes, bags, cupboards and suitcases, and do something with them.  And I'm happy to say i've already finished one of them and am close to a second.  But first, here is my pile, arranged for dramatic affect:

So I now know I am the proud owner of more than 30 unfinished knitting projects.  And those are ones I have actually started - I probably have another thirty that are still in the imaginary stages, which in some cases I own the yarn for, and have partially or fully designed the pattern, but it may never leave my computer.  Ugh.

That said, let's celebrate something that is finished, and finished today!  Here is an earthy sort of sweater that knit up pretty quick, even though I started it well over a year ago - I got side-tracked, see my other 30 unfinished projects.  Like most of my creations, it made itself up as i went along - one way in which I think knitting and writing are very much the same.  The original idea for this sweater was to mimic one seen in an episode of Angel, worn by Cordelia.  Her sweater in that episode was a pretty simple brown thing, but the sleeves were only attached to the body by a few stitches in the middle of the arm, making the sweater kinda sexy and also prime for armpit ventilation.

So I set off with the plan to replicate this Cordy's sweater.  I started the sweater as i generally do, from the neck down in a seamless, raglan sleeve design.  When I separated the sleeves from the body, I bound off the sleeves except for 4 stitches in the middle of each, which I held with a safety pin.  Then things started to change for me.  I got bored with stockinette stitch halfway down the body, and opted for some lace detail, so I've got a simple lace/ cablesque thing going on, with 3 rows of k2/p2 rib and then one row of k2 tog, yo, p2 alternating with yo, k2 tog, p2 so that the holes switch sides of the rib (sorry guys, I realize that most of the people who are going to read this are not knitters, and this falls into the mumbo jumbo category.  Also, if you are a knitter and are considering replicating this lace pattern, know that I don't know the difference between k2 tog and k1 sl1 psso - I just put whichever stitch I want in front and k2 tog for either).  So here's that lace:

Also, you'll notice that in the finished picture (down below) I do not include the awesome sleeves, which were the whole point of making the thing to begin with.  Well, I did add them, or begin to add them anyway.  But I tried it on with the sleeves and decided that they were kind of lame.  I ended up loving the sweater i ended up with, but it doesn't really represent the original vision at all.  Funny how life is sometimes.