Things are Going Better

I'm increasingly happy with the progress of this strange garment. I still haven't finished the first full pattern repeat, but I've now done enough that the undulations are becoming pleasingly conspicuous. This is how much

further forward


I was by last night. The picture doesn'tdo justice to the dark band in the middle -- there is a tendency, with my colour system (where the background and foreground colours change in relation to each other and to the pattern) for bits of the pattern to disappear, especially in the dark-on-dark sections. Usually, it doesn't matter -- the eye can supply any deficiencies by knowledge of the overall pattern.

Here, that doesn't work, since the overall pattern is so odd and indeterminate. There is one point where it disappears, that green stripe early on -- it just looks like a green stripe. But despite what the picture seems to show, it carries on perfectly legibly through the dark centre band.

I have reached, sure enough, the point where an underarm gusset would have to start. The prototype, Helen's Wedding Sweater, has one. My notes don't have any suggestion of why, nor of how successful the result was. Alice Starmore's Fair Isle Handbook, which I am using as a vade mecum, shows gussets on pullovers but not on cardigans. I think it might be altogether too much fabric under the arms, and decided last night to leave gussets out this time. Any comments? Today's the day, as far as this decision is concerned.