Never-ending hood o' doom.

So my second estimated finish date for my CPH is going to pass me by before too long. Three weeks ago, I thought for sure I'd be finished by this coming Sunday but it's not going to happen unless I can magic two knit sleeves out of my butt. :) If anyone knows how to do that, please let me know, it would be some trick! Useful, too.

The hood, of all things, took five days to knit. Five full days for what was just over 12" of knitting. I have to admit, I was gobsmacked that one of the simplest pieces of this knit took so long. I'm currently working on the endless ribbing since I'm doing it all in one piece. It's going more quickly then the hood did. I suppose the fact that I'm not purling 90 or so stitches every other row helps.

I still have no idea what I want to do with the sleeves. At the moment, I *think* I want to knit them with the more simple thin cable up each one. I thought I'd do them in plain stockinette, but I wasn't sure if that was because I want to be done so I can move on, or because I'd prefer that from an aesthetic point of view. I've been debating short vs. 3/4 vs. long on this as well. For the type of sweater it's meant to be, I'm thinking I should do a full length sleeve. I don't do a lot of those as they aren't overly useful in Texas, but for visits back home and potential future duty stations, I may as well have one go-to snuggly sweater.

For now, I'm hoping I can get this sweater knocked out before March is up. At that point in time, I'll have been working on it 7 or 8 weeks.

I had originally planned to do the Soap Bubble wrap next, but I think I'm going to take a minor detour and do a couple of smaller projects first. Ones that won't take 3+ weeks to finish. Ones that will give me more immediate gratification. I have some yarn caked up to do Ishbel and I have some Sundara Sock I scored during CaWG that would make a gorgeous Nightsong. This will be my first real dip into the waters of shawl knitting. Both should be more like scarves then actual shawl-shawls...for some reason, I get visions of Stevie Nicks stuck in my head when I think of them. I'm not ripping on Stevie, mind you, but I don't really think that whole witchy gypsy thing is quite me...or the opposite extreme that I think of when I think shawls: stuffy, formal, overly frilly.

Ishbel Sneak Peek.

Nightsong Sneak Peek.

I find it strange that the longer I knit, the slower I get. Though, the more neat my knitting has become in the process. Knitting flat slows me down to about a third of my round knitting because I have to be careful lest my purls get all loose on me. No one likes a loose stitch.

I'm hoping to have another WIP picture soon, or better yet, an FO to show off.