Sweater WIP 2

Here's the sweater. It's going pretty slow because, most days, I only find the time to knit one or two rows during a lunch break or whatever. I just hit my 2nd ball-o-yarn mark a second ago. Pretty exciting.
It's 12" tall, which means I have about 16" to go for this piece to be done.

Last weekend, Lacy and I enjoyed our 1 year anniversary. We wanted to travel a short distance away, but decided just to be lazy and stay at home, which worked out fine.

And we took lots of pictures of our cats.

Sweater WIP

Lacy and I went to Sip and Knit about a week ago for, you know, yarn. I was interested in men's sweater patterns and Doni the proprietor suggested a few books. The book I ended up taking home was The Knitting Experience, Book 2: The Purl Stitch by Sally Melville. The one book with the cover on which the scary white chick thrice appears in the same knitted orange "suit dress." Scariness aside, it's a great series of books with great techniques and easy-to-follow patterns.

I decided to knit this:
Just a little beyond my skill set, but Doni is good about walking you through patterns, even over the phone, if you run into any trouble.

Here is how far I am:

That's the back panel.

Coincidentally, it's similar to the pattern I used for the most recent dishrag, but this is more intuitive. It's set up to where you just alternate 8 sts k and 8 sts p on one row, then k only on the next row, and it still achieves 3 different stitch patterns all the way up. I'm using GGH Tara yarn, 72% cotton and 28% nylon. It's very soft, boingy, and expensive.

Every Monday night, Lacy and I have class at the same time. Since mine gets out earlier, I knit in the hall outside Lacy's class while I wait. Since most of the classes for my major are in that building, I always run into people I know. This one guy in particular always give me a good humored hard time. He suggested that we should start a club called, "Sew What!?" Anyway, yesterday night, he says to me, "Where's your dignity? For every stitch, you need to swim across a river and chop down a tree to regain your manhood." Given the nature of the clothing industry, I can think of few things more dignified than than making your own textiles. Oh well, to each their own. He said bye and left. Then he came back for that awkward moment where you have to say hi again. He asked me what I wanted to do for a career. I told him that I wanted to be a writer.