Overheard while knitting today

Knitter #1: [Heaving a heavy sigh, working on redoing the fronts to a sweater she's been working on having adapted the Vogue pattern to go with homespun yarn, ouch] "There must be a patron saint of knitting, don't you think??"
Me: [With a straight face] "Yeah, St. Jude."
Knitter #2: [Wry smile]
Knitters #1 and 3: [Quizzical looks]
Me: "Jude is the patron saint of policemen and lost causes."

Slightly later, I'm finishing winding the last ball for my vest, 440 yards of sock yarn.  Knitter #2 looks over: "Wow, you're almost done with that?  You're fast - I always have problems with my balls."

I'm almost done with the neck!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Vest nearing completion

Okay, first thing to notice, see that tiny little scrap ball of yarn?  Yeah, I still have to pick up and knit the neck.  Planning fail.  I have the yarn, just not with me.
That said, I like it.  I used an idea from one of the Monday knitting folks and used a purl side roll rather than ribbbing for the arm holes, which I like a lot.  I also used short rows to shape the neck hole rather than taking stitches off and I think the finished product will be MUCH nicer this way.  I also constructed it in flat peices, but with the idea that it needed to be very 3 dimensional, so I built in a solid tab down the side, underneath the armhole (sort of armpit strip, if you want to be poetic) and I wanted the armholes to have more hole-ness to them, so I constructed insets for the shoulder seams, just short cable bits, and set them in (you can see them in this second picture).
So, I need to finish it, block it and find some clasps for the neck.  And take some daylight pictures, the neck is hard to see in these (hard to see too, when it's still a big mess and not all worked into place) .I hope everyone had a nice holiday -we did.  The cooking discovery of the weekend went to this corn bread chorizo stuffing.  Don't wait for next Thanksgiving, make it.  It can be dinner all on it's own.  Granted, it's crapload of chopping, but once you do that, it's pretty quick to make and be real, how can you go wrong with chorizo, cornbread, veggies and a stick of butter?????

I'm back

Sorry, life was crazy there for a while. Not that the holidays help with that sort of thing (neither does a family, or a job or any of those things).
Speaking of, I'm feeling more on top of Christmas than in a long time - and yes, I'm doing lots of knitting. This is for my mom - it's vest. I should make more vests, they're fast.



The problem with knitting presents is you really have to plan ahead. Like, so far ahead, it takes all damn year. And who wants to plan out their knitting life that far in advance?? Talk about killing all the fun.
But I was reminded of This today. So, if you need a gift for a crazy bibliophile, check it out.
I need to look at scarf patterns - going to try out Capra

Socks they're good for waiting

Like at the deli

Going to the dentist

Knitting is relaxing.