Getting on the trapeze

This has been a quiet weekend, spent strenuously avoiding all the marking that was waiting for me. It's now 9:00pm on a Sunday and I haven't picked up the red pen yet, so I'm either doing something right or very, very wrong. When I am groaning mid-week about all the marking I have to do, I must remember this.

The quiet weekend got off to an excellent start with the arrival of two packages containing some prime weekend reading:

Please ignore the hideous carpet and concentrate instead of the wealth of patterns. I found Rowan 38 for cheap on ebay, and despite that fact that I am unlikely to knit a thing from it before spring, I love the patterns from the 'romance' section and will definitely be knitting up a few of those.

I eagerly dove into the two magazines, searching feverishly for my next pattern. I skipped all the articles -- I'll go back for those later. This was all about finding a use for 20 skeins of DK wool/silk so I could finally get my next project started. (Here, I must go backwards and say that, having swatched the night before, I had actually spent part of the morning working on Ivy. My gauge was perfect, my cables were cruising along, and I was ready to burn the needles in frustration. Just say no to bulk ebay bamboo. The needles themselves are fine, but the fabric does not budge an inch on the cord without assistance. I've encountered this problem before and hated it then, but now that I've been spoiled by working with Addi Turbos and Lantern Moons, I can't go back to the bunching fabric and having to constantly stop knitting to push it around. I can't! So Ivy made it 2 inches before she was frogged in frustration. New plan: buy one set of GOOD needles every month, since I currently only have sets in 3.75 and 4mm.)

Although I like the new IK a lot, nothing grabbed me and insisted I make it. VK had several striking pieces, and I immediately started swatching for the lace hoodie, but I did not like the way it looked with the only possible yarn I have on hand. Add that one to the queue. The number of oversized, cabled sweaters is a bit worrying -- I lived through the 80s once, people, and I don't need to do it again.

Having realized that my current needle/yarn situation was not going to work with any of the patterns I wanted (note to self: this is an excellent excuse to build up your stash), I turned to the Internet and, on the same day I received three knitting magazines, bought a pattern. It was an emergency, I said to my wallet. I had nothing on hand I wanted to knit!

So, behold the first few inches of Trapeze.. It's an interesting knit, and definitely helping to improve my rib stitch, as the entire thing is worked in a slipped rib pattern. The pattern starts off immediately with short rows -- no messing around here. I made a few mistakes, but by the time I spotted them, I had three more inches of perfect rib under my belt and there was no way I was frogging it.

Can you see it? Here's a hint -- 2/3 of the way in, on the bottom right side. I've decided that I can fix it in the blocking or just count on the rest of the sweater to hide it. I am so happy to finally be cruising along on a project that I don't want any interruptions. I'll just say that I kept the error in to remind myself of my fallibility. Yeah, that's it.