Cardi Love

I am so in love with this shrug:

I desperately want to make it, especially since one of my few wardrobe items that resembled it has felted to much too small for me this winter because I was too lazy to handwash it. Apparently, that was a bad idea. It used to look like this:

Now, it doesn't. :-) (It is much more of a shoulder-hugging shrug now than the original Cable Vest, actually—which, by the way, is a brilliantly simple design by Sarah Punderson.)

The only problem is how very little knitting time I am getting these days. Less than blogging time, apparently, and that hasn't happened in a few years. :-) On the rare day when I do have a chance to sit on the couch with my hubby at the end of it, my hands are just so happy to be empty, and my arms are so thrilled to not be holding anything in them, that I will sit and watch an entire episode (currently on Season 1 of Smallville) without so much as opening my knitting bag.

Not to mention, I'm in the middle of three knitting projects already.

Still, the Forest and Frill pattern is calling me... It's so darn summery... and those other projects-in-progress (double-knit cheetah balaclava/mitt set I'm designing, thigh-high chunky cabled socks I'm designing, and green lace socks I'm not designing) all seem to be dragging into rather unseasonable seasons.... well, with the exception of the lace socks. Which, in my defence, is what I have been working on lately, when I have been knitting at all. (Although I know I need to finish the other ones so the patterns can be posted at the beginning of the appropriate season!)

Cables and lace, how I love thee... especially when combined in a perfect crop top and a delicious chocolate hue...