Testing, testing...

Is anyone writing this blog? You know, after I posted last week about not having much to post about, I thought, Emily, you must get on with starting something new so you have something to post. So I did. Last Tuesday night I swatched for Anais, even going so far as to wash wet my swatch and pin it out, and then I got a bit excited and knit the lace inset: I thought, aha! I can blog about this on Thursday, but then Oliver got into something and we were in a panic about him on Thursday night and Friday (he's fine), so I didn't post, and then it was the weekend (the Fiber Gallery anniversary sale was great as always), and then I had to finish up a news story on the potential environmental disaster about to be wrought by our current biofuel strategy, due today, and so on. But, since the story is done and the back of Anais is almost complete as well, I guess this post is overdue.
I am tempted to hold forth on the biofuel issue, but I will restrain myself and talk about Anais instead, this being a knitting blog. I am loving it so far. The Shine Sport is wonderful yarn to knit - very smooth. It makes a fairly dense fabric that still drapes, so I think it was a good choice for Anais, which is a relatively close-fitting (hopefully) top. My row gauge is 7 st/inch instead of 8, so I've been having to modify things a bit. I had to space out my decrease and increase rounds a bit more and then had to do fewer of them to compensate, but I think that will be okay. The overall length will remain the same but it won't nip in quite as much at the waist, which is fine. I'm at the neck shaping on the back piece, which I'm going to do using short-rows so I can graft live stitches at the shoulder seams like I did for the Drops Swing Cardigan. I think that will look neater. I was tempted to knit this in the round but decided not to so I would have the stability of side seams. I've been slipping the first stitch of every row and that will make the seaming a breeze.
Oh, the Tuxedo Top is finished, and I wore it yesterday. It's great, I love it, the fit is perfect, etc. I'll post the report about it as soon as I have modeled photos!