WIP: New on the Needles

I've been doing a truly excellent job of keeping myself on task to crank out the FOs--totally on track for two weeks straight!--, and then on Saturday I happened upon a sweater/cardi/shrug thing in a little Asian market that brought the 80s crashing back, and I tried it on and really liked it; but not the price tag of $40 for a machine-knit 100% acrylic thing that I could make myself.  So I went home and thought about it, obsessively, because is there any other way to think about knitting?  And then I woke up on Sunday morning with the pattern in my head.  And you know what that means ... yes you do!  No papers got graded.  That's what that means.  I had to start on the sweater in my head and get that pattern written down before it was lost.  The good news is that I have found a use for that giant cable that I couldn't get to work out as a scarf about 6 weeks ago.  So, here's a sneak peak at part of panel #1.

This yarn (Vanna's Choice) is 100% acrylic--which is perfect for developing a pattern because it's cheap and it helps you to figure out how much yardage you need before spending money on the really good stuff.  Plus, it's from the stash, so I'm creating something new AND busting my stash at the same time.  Bonus!

I'm thinking I might get away with under 600 yards of heavy worsted weight yarn for this project, but we'll see.  I'm using 10.5 US circular; but will probably transfer to a pair of straight needles since my 29" cable just doesn't seem long enough for this project.  I've already done some ripping out because of a row mis-count. The post-Halloween candy drama (we thought the world would end this afternoon when Scout 2 ate a mini-Hershey Bar out of Rocket's candy bucket!  So many tears!!) caused the miscue.  But, back on track now and looking good.  For Ravelry project purposes, I've temporarily named this one "Retro", but I am sure there is a cliche 80s title out there, just waiting to be claimed.

And as a side note about how much my day job--which does not involve knitting or fiber whatsoever--has started to get to me, this morning, after turning off the alarm at 5:10 am, I fell back asleep and dreamt that I was in a giant closet--more like a master bedroom in and of itself--sitting on one of those giant, round velvet ottomans that you find in the chic women's restrooms at the Fox Theatre, which was covered up with my clothing, looking at three walls of my own clothes hanging up, and I was having a temper tantrum about how there was nothing that I wanted to wear because I only wanted to wear jeans and I hated my job and didn't want to go to work.  I don't have quite so many clothes, and my small walk-in closet is so over-run with assorted mess and things to be hidden from the children that there's definitely no room for a velvet ottoman.  I guess the clothing thing was just my brain's way of hyperbolizing my subconscious desire to have a job where I can wear jeans every day and not have to even think about which pair of shoes to wear and did I wear that sweater already this week.  But, if my Etsy and Ravelry sales hadn't totally bottomed out over the last two weeks, I don't think I would be quite as stressed about my day job--I find myself thinking that if I stayed home I could find some way to ramp up my sales.  Patience is not one of my virtues.  Oh well.  There are 15 of 52 sets of research paper note cards left and calling my name to be graded.  See you on the knit side.