massive Veste Everest progress; thinking about Sweaters From Camp knitalong

I finished the main knitting on Veste Everest last night.


(Sorry for the darkness. Not a lot of light today, and this photo was even enhanced.)

That tangled mess over, under, and around the back piece is because a couple of the skeins I used had a lot of knots in it, and I preferred to rip out the knots and reattach the yarn, rather than risk the knots migrate to the right side of the knitting and show. (I just didn't feel like keeping a cup of water around for spit splicing. Probably my bad.) The knots were probably all my fault, as this is recycled yarn. It is in pretty good shape, in that it's not fuzzy or pilly or anything. But it's also a bit dry, and knitting with it has reminded me how relatively brittle it was when I was frogging it. I think conditioner will help it out a lot.

I'm going to weave in all of my ends before soaking and blocking it. There are just so many that I want to get things nice and neat ASAP. As you can see, I already joined the shoulders, using 3 needle bindoffs. The pattern says to do that after blocking, but binding off the shoulders now means four less bits that have to be on scrap yarn while it's washed and spun out. The center back stitches will still have to be put on scrap, but that's it.

On a completely different note, do any of you know of another blogger (or even non-blogger) who has ever made something from Sweaters From Camp, or who has serious plans to knit something from the book in the near future? I was doing some searching yesterday, and am frankly astounded at how few knitting bloggers ever knit anything from that fabulous book. There are many references to the book, and to camp itself, including many folks who have mentioned which designs they might like to knit. But I'm having the hardest time finding people who have actually followed through and knit any of the designs. I know of one other blogger who is working on a project from the book, but since she's keeping the exact project a secret on the KBTH mailing list, I won't go into details. But that's it.

I'm thinking that it might be fun to try to start a Sweaters From Camp knitalong. I'm not sure I'll do it right away, even if I end up knitting the Traditional Fair Isle Jumper (boy, that sweater needs a shorter, snappier nickname, if I'm going to keep on talking about it) this winter. It's a bit soon (as I plan to cast on for the sucker as soon as I get the yarn, if I decide to get the yarn, assuming my Ingeborg yarn doesn't arrive), and there are a couple of other knitalongs taking up the time of many of the people who I think may be interested in participating in something like this. But I still hope to knit the Autumn Color Cardigan from SFC during the first half of 2006, and maybe I'll try to start up a SFC knitalong when I'm closer to that point. I just think the book deserves more attention, and the designs in the book deserve to be knit way more frequently. There are some gems in there, and even the designs that I don't find to be gemlike can probably be salvaged, to great effect, with colorway alterations.

Would any of you be potentially interested in a Sweaters From Camp knitalong, starting several months from now? Consider this post my effort to officially put feelers out there. If you're intimidated by the designs, just remember that it's just 2 colors per row. That's it. 2 colors per row. You can do that! And if you don't own the book, it might not be too late to add it to your holiday wishlist. :-)