And the Winner Is...

Not this one!

This is the drunken cable border with a pie crust cable center panel.  It still looks bunchy and sloppy to me.  I am not a fan.  

Next I tried a ribbed cable, something I'd seen in the Vogue Stitchionary but had never tried.  A commercial sweater that I have, with an oversized cable, utilizes this technique.  It also employs other cheater methods to give the appearance of a cable where there isn't one though, so I wasn't sold on the idea.  

I used the idea of the drunken cable, but instead of crossing 9 over 9, I crossed 9 ribbed over 9 ribbed.  It looks much much nicer.  The cables lay relatively flat and seem pretty defined.  

So the winner is this one.  

I tried different numbers of rows between the cables.  I think this distance works the best.  

And I think I will have to use three columns across instead of two.  

I'm currently working out how I want to make the increases/decreases for the sleeves.  I think I'm going to knit this from the top down.  I'm going to knit one more swatch to see how wide three repeats of the cable will be and to make sure I like how it looks worked upside down.  

I'm so close!

Another Debate, Another Swatch.

At the beginning of the debate I cast on for another brown sweater swatch.  And I really think this cable might be the winner.    

Anyway, I made one stitch every time McCain said "my friends", and look how far I got!

Ha ha.  

The cable doesn't show very well in this photo, I'll take better pictures once I've knit a few more repeats.  It's a ribbed version of the drunken cable idea.  Everyone cross your fingers.  

Saturday!

That's right, we went to Yarn Con.

After I noted that the lady at the door had failed to complete my "x", Josh pointed out that it was most likely intended to be a "y". As he put it, "Y, for yarn."

The event was a little underwhelming. Especially after the Stitches marketplace. I didn't buy anything. I saw some fiber and yarn that I liked, but not anything that really struck me. More yarn money for another day I guess. They gave us nifty little yarn con pins, Josh said he wasn't going to wear his, go figure. I'm glad I went. If I decide to go again I'll probably try to take a more yarn centric companion.

Palin makes my head hurt.

Knitting makes me feel better.  

I worked on another swatch for the brown sweater while Josh and I yelled at our TV.  I need to knit a bunch more and block it a little to see if I like the cables.  So far I like the drunken cables bordering the pie crust better than the pie crust cable itself.  We shall see how this plays out.