Well, I'm Back

It's been a while, and a rough 18 months. I had pretty much stopped knitting during that hiatus. But it's time to get back to knitting and blogging.


See the gorgeous vest (if I do say so myself)? Made it years ago for DH out of Classic Elite Tapestry. It's his favorite vest too. So much so that this happened:


By the time I spotted it, the hole became too big for me to repair (behind a cable and all). The vest lays in repose in my cedar chest.
If that weren't enough, DH did an injury to this vest:

Yep, that's DH clowning around in a vest I designed and made up in Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride. This week I saw that DH ripped the bottom of it at the cast-on edge. I'm still frantically in search of the leftover yarn I know I put away but so far no luck. DH is, as you might deduce, terribly hard on vest. So out came the needles and the patterns and the stash. Fortunately, I have enough Tapestry stashed away for 5 more vests. While I'd prefer to knit a simpler pattern, DH really likes this pattern called the Rugged Vest, published by Reynolds Yarn in 1991. It was designed by MJ Protus, and features a beading rib strip alternating between a circle cable and a gull wing cable. Tapestry is perfect for it; it needs that crisp feel. I made it once in Jamieson Shetland Aran, and I don't like it as much in Shetland wool; the cables don't pop out as well. So here I am, starting it again, even though it required cabling on every right-side row.




I've even messed up one gull wing cable already, cabled in the wrong direction. I decided to let it be; after all I'm still recuperating from bronchitis (courtesy of DH).

Amazing how much my knitting stuff has scattered over these past months. I think they sprouted legs and wandered off. So far I'm missing my leftover yarn for repairs, a bunch of circular needles, a Bernat book of men's vests, and a knitting notebook. Does this ever happen to you?