Well, that was quite a month. Let’s pretend it never happened, and it hasn’t been over a month since I’ve written/answered email/looked on rav/sat down for more than 5 minutes, okay? I’ll just say “Happy new year!” and we’ll move on?
Of course I have my usual complement of exciting things going on behind the scenes here, and stuff to tell you about the book
and how it will affect the web pages on the same topic, a very exciting series I’m hoping to start one week from today, and resolutions that I’ve made for 2013, and the class I’m filming REALLY SOON NOW OMG with the amazing folks at Craftsy, and yadda yadda yadda.
But I’m not going to do any of that today. Today, I want to start the new year off right by showing you one of the things I made while I’ve been away. Just for Jacob. Just because he wanted me to. With no deadline, tech editing, or any of the usual hoopla associated with me designing and knitting a sweater.

“I want a sweater with a spider on it,” he said. “Not like a cutesy spider. A tough spider.” Am I, a former goth, really going to argue with that? I am NOT.

The spider is from Barbara Walker’s Charted Treasury
, the sweater is based on a store-bought that he wears all the time. I flipped her chart upside down and added a “web” line of twisted stitches, and continued the reverse stockinette panel over the shoulder and onto the back.
I used cotton fleece, because he runs hot like a furnace and it’s hardly ever cold enough for him to wear the alpaca stuff I make. In red, which we all know is the most bad-ass color around.

He pronounced it “super cool” and took exception with a line he read later that day in a “Big Nate” book about knitting clubs and the horrible sweaters they produce: “I think this author never knew a real knitter, Mom, because your sweaters always fit really well and look better than clothes from a store.”
Stronger praise, there never was.