In Which I Do Not Accomplish As Much as I'd Hoped

I really thought I was going to finish the neckband on the sweater, and have a visible amount on the sleeves to show all y'all this morning, but for some reason, I just couldn't get going on the sleeves last night. I did get them cast on, and a couple of cuff facing rows knitted, but then I put it aside and worked on the Miter-Square Patchwork socks for a bit (about 2" on the sole left to knit, then the toe, and all those ends to weave in before seaming and I'll be done with that pair).

But I did get the neckband done, and it turned out fine. Though you can shape necklines for steeking as you knit, it's just as easy to knit the whole body as a tube (for pullovers and high-necked cardigans- with v-necks, I decrease) and then trim the excess. That way I can fiddle with the neckline placement and curve up until the scissors hit the yarn.

In this case, there wasn't all that much to cut away. I trimmed the excess to about 3/4" on the fronts, and along the back, to reduce bulk in the band. and then folded the cut edge up and the band down, and sewed it into place.

And then just for fun, I set the clasps on the sweater just to see how they'll look. As much as I love these clasps, I wonder if they're too *busy* for the design. I might look for some plainer clasps. What do you think?

I got these from Button Drawer (http://www.buttondrawer.com/home.asp ) which has an amazing selection of extremely reasonably priced buttons. Added later: they don't have any plain-clasp styles. Evidently, all sweater clasps are busy. So I'll probably use these. They're gorgeous (though not pewter, as I erroneously thought).

Olympic Question of the Day: Was Mark Spitz always such a whiner?