Here's A Knitting update that I used to I'm using to introduce my new knitting project to my knit list.

So I started a new sweater: second time with this yarn, there was a faulty swatching assumption made, that was compounded by the fact that the design wasn't going to work for the sweater I was trying to make. Seems that just taking a mitten from the Latvian Mitten book by Lizbeth Upitis, and making it sweater sized isn't such a good idea after all...

Anyway, with proper gauge in hand, I've started a new sweater. I'm doing something loosely inspired by Joyce Williams' "Morocco" Sweater in her Latvian Dreams book. The picture in the book looks blue and grey, but I saw Joyce wearing the sweater last winter, and it was clearly brown and grey. Those photographers, I tell you. Mine is black and grey, and I'm only on row 13 or so of the first chart. There are almost 400 stitches... Anyway mostly I'm just being chatty about this, because it's so rare for me to make a sweater that's not some just weird thing that I cooked up... You'll note that I didn't say "and I finished a sweater, so I cast on another one), I'm still about 5 sleeves behind myself.

I guess this leads me to a couple of idle questions: First, I cast on provisionally and I'm expecting to knit a hem on to this sweater (cardigan: so two long sides, neck, and bottom) in one piece. By my count this means that I'll need to knit about 130 inches of hem. On size zero. My zero circular needle is 36 inches. Do they even make 80 inch ciruclar needles in size zero. Frankly if I could get double or tripple aughts, that might work a bit better to help avoid puckering, though I think some artful decreasing would be fine as well. Anyway. Suggestions there would be great.

The other thing, is that I'm going to be changing the neckline a bit: Joyce's design has a very square neck shaping, and I'm more fond of round shapes. This alone isn't terribly difficult, but.... I wanted to do shoulder saddles to sort of mesh with the pattern a little better, and I'm not sure what the best way to turn a square neck hole into a round one, if you're working with shoulder saddles. I'm afraid that all of the ways I can currently think of would look... dweby. Resources? thoughts? (Saddles would be started provisionally at the neck and worked across the shoulder: the part I'm worried about is the square space formed between the front and back neck lines and the beginnings of the saddle. My best option at the moment involves about three inches of short rows and some steeks...