Knitting mail

Yesterday was a good day for knitting mail.

First, my September issue of Woolgathering arrived. The design on the cover is an old, previously unpublished design concept (well, the yoke chart was the discovery) that Meg found in EZ's notes. She also has an old photo of her sister Lloie wearing a variant.

What I find intriguing about this photo, and the design, is that when I look at the dark brown sweater I see downward pointing pairs of leaves, separated by narrow vertical lines.

On the purple one I see upward pointing leaves on either side of that vertical line. Same chart to knit both.

Is it my crazy eyes?
And yes, I am tempted by the cardigan, though in my stashed dark browns (etc) of unspun Icelandic yarn. Resisting starting anything but keeping it in my mental queue. (Yes, OK, I'll get to listing it on Ravelry eventually. I have to say that my Ravelry interaction is pretty minimal. There are tons of WIPs I should enter, and queue items and so on... but I don't)

This is my response to the next knitting mail--a notice from Janet Szabo that my Twists and Turns subscription is about to end. So off goes my renewal.

Janet makes these newsletters available in either hard copy or PDF form (no trees die till you print something out). I prefer the PDF for storage and accessibility reasons. Twists and Turns is a delightful read, and invariably there are items I either want to knit (no, I often don't get to them, but imagiknitting is fun, too) or that are very inspirational in some way. And I just like to hear what Janet has to say about the cable knitting world!

Finally, some yarn (didn't I need more?) arrived to be knit into a sweater for my oldest son.

I don't start sweaters for him lightly-- he really wears them, loves and appreciates them greatly, and his body (almost 14 now and growing like a weed) is large enough there is a lot more knitting involved than there used to be when he was only 6. This is from Elann, their Highland Wool-- I am making him a light grey pullover, raglan or drop shoulder (haven't decided yet) that uses one or more of those lovely little Faroese color patterns. Contrast will be (hold onto your hats) charcoal and white.

Yup, he is a boy. No garish reds for him ;)

This is a brief State-Of-My-Knitting report. Above is on the backside of the body of my Hanne Falkenberg Plisse (please someone tell me how to make this dratted blogger let me use an acute mark over my e??).
This is the public side of the back.

Just to clarify a bit, the back is worked first, from centerback out to the side, stopping at the neckline. Front is worked the same, on one side, then the two pieces join to be worked from bottom of front, up over shoulder and down the back, until the shoulder/underarm are reached.

Side-to-side knitting but starting in the center and working out.

I am currently working the left front-over-shoulder-down-back section.

Very enjoyable knitting. Annoyingly, I know I should put it aside to make my son's sweater (he needs it a bit more, for one, having outgrown his old one.) yes, but...

...so I knit on, on my Plisse jacket.