Approaching shoulder seams ....

Pictures, you say? Sorry. My camera battery has given up the ghost, and new batteries are no closer than Thursday. Still, an update is in order.

The blue Noro hat has been frogged, reknit with a smaller circumference, and given to the recipient. The cable has been completed, kitchnered twice - once poorly, and once well - with contrasting red yarn, waiting for camera batteries and photos. But since it *is* my current take-along project, I also picked up the stitches around the length of the cable and have started on the stockinette portion of the hat. The dishcloths didn't get done on Friday, and I decided to consider the hat my Stash project.

I'm in the last 20 rows or so of the sweater body. The start of the neck steek is an inch ago, and I had to switch to smaller needles. The one issue I have now is ... to what extent do I want to make my patterns balanced on both sides of the neck? And across the back? If I decide to make things utterly perfectly totally balanced, I will need to go back several rows and regroup. I really don't want to do that.

Then again, that is easier than doing 20 rows and THEN deciding things do have to be perfectly balanced. Time to drag out my drafting tools and see what would be involved in balancing things. The problem is that they're being balanced on top of an asymmetrical design, and the places where I don't want the points to be with respect to the previous design is just the place where they would need to be if symmetry was my goal. Ah, decisions, decisions, decisions.

Several new books have come into my life lately. They are A Gathering of Lace, A Creative Guide to Knitting Lace, Country Knits, and coming to me soon via UPS, Two-End Knitting. My hands-down favorite of the first three is A Gathering of Lace. I can't decide what to make from it first. I also keep reminding myself of the tea cozy, the socks (and the two new skeins of sock yarn I got yesterday to do some two-color reticulated pattern sock experimentation with), and those dishcloths. It's a pretty good bet, though, that I will have a dainty shawl on my needles some time this year.

I'm listening to the Bible and 1776 on tape as I work on my knitting, and am just about finished reading Evita. After that comes Kirsten Lavransdatter. It's big, it's fat, it's three books in one, and I only have it for three weeks. I'll get it squeezed in somewhere. Same thing with my editing work. It's all getting done! A little bit each day makes the to-do list go away.