I have had the luxury of knitting most of the day because I am home sick. Unfortunately, the yarn I need is at the store, so the kimono jacket has been put aside once again and yet another project has begun!

We got some interesting yarns to dye this month, among them a cabled composite yarn made up of a fancy boucle of silk and rayon plied with a synthetic boucle. As a test, I soda ash dyed some of it in the Gold Dust colorway which seems to be a favorite with our customers. It is very bulky.

Sabra showed me a pattern in a book by Elizabeth Zimmerman that caught my interest. The body is knitted in one piece from the bottom up, and then stitches picked up around the armholes and the arms then knitted. Sort of like the Garter Stitch Vest in Folk Vests, which I am also knitting. I thought the sweater would be great in this new yarn. The sizing is done by varying the yarn gauge.

I cast on 120 stitches on size eleven needles and went to town. After about four inches, I thought the yarn would really look great in a ripple sort of stitch, so I did a row of a similar stitch I saw Lily Chin do on the Knitty Gritty TV show on the DIY Network, but it was too tedious to do on that many stitches, so the rest of it will be in garter stitch. Will let you know how it goes.