A Tale of WIPs and Swatches

Forgive the boring title; I've been a bit under the weather the past few days and it's all I could come up with right now. So as far as this post is concerned, you'll get exactly what you're expecting.

I've been working on a number of projects lately without making significant progress (sort of) on any one in particular, so I haven't had much in the way of FO-age to show you. I thought instead I'd give you a little peek at the WIPs, if only so that certain people continue to think of me as the Knitting Queen. *laugh*snort* So here you are:

The past day or two the WIP that's seen the most attention is the socks on the left. Those are my Jaywalkers; the second sock has about three more inches of foot to go before the toe, and my goal is to finish the pair this weekend.

In the center, that big purple blob, is the sweater I've been knitting for my coworker. It's Wendy's Marilyn's Not So Shrunken Cardigan, which as you see is getting very close to being finished. I finished knitting the first sleeve the other day. The body is done, so all that's left to do is the second sleeve, the button bands, and the weaving in of ends and tacking down of hems. The lighting is this photo is awful, so you can't really see how gorgeous the yarn (Elsebeth Lavold Silky Tweed) is. Once this sucker is done, I'll do my best to get some natural lighting for the FO photo shoot.

Finally, on the right, is my mother's tube scarf, which I literally haven't touched since last year (Christmas, probably). I have a sinking feeling that this is going to go the way of my tube scarf, which languished in the FO pile for nearly a year. My mother hasn't asked about it, and she's gotten another hand knit scarf since she asked for this one, so I may be able to get away with ignoring it for a while.

There's another WIP not in this picture, and that's the first of the pair of socks for my Sockret Pal. I started it the night before I left for Chicago and got through the cuff and one lace repeat. The morning of my flight, I realized I'd missed the two knit rows between the two sections, tinked back twelve rows, and then knit the two rows and the first lace section again at the airport. I thought it best to not work on lace while on the airplane (anxiety and turbulence not making for ideal lace knitting conditions), so I switched over to the Jaywalkers and haven't gone back. Once I finish the second sock for myself, I'm going to force myself to go back to that first lace sock.

In the meantime, I can't wait to get started on the next project. I didn't make it to knit night on Wednesday as I was feeling icky (didn't want to spread my germs and didn't feel like going back out in the cold), but I felt just well enough to wind the Cascade 220 for J's Cambridge Jacket. Last night I felt ickier, but found enough strength to do some swatching:

I started out with the size 9 needles called for in the pattern, but got nowhere near gauge (19.5 sts and 27 rows over four inches) and didn't particularly care for the quality of the fabric either. So I went down a size and was much more pleased with the results: a drapey fabric, but not too loose -- not to mention spot-on stitch gauge. My row gauge is slightly off (26 rows rather than 27 over four inches), but that's easier to fix. I've got to remeasure J's chest once more, as I seem to have forgotten to write it down when I did the original measurement, and then I'm all set to go. Before I take on the sweater curse, however, I've decided that I really must finish my coworker's sweater. Right sleeve, here I come!