Yarn Along - Guess What Time It Is

I finished my "spring" Baa-ble hat for the Meridian Jacobs KAL (knit along).  For some insane reason I added back in the two rows I'd taken out for the first one and on top of that must have knit at a slightly looser gauge, so it turned out...too big.  

I could have ripped it all the way back down to the sheep and started over, but I really need a couple days off from knitting so I decided to try to shrink it in a hot, soapy, agitating (the ingredients for shrinking wool) bath.  

It didn't shrink.  I tried three times.  I finally tossed it in the dryer and ran it about an hour total on high heat and it finally shrank a tiny bit.  Luckily I knit the ribbing tight enough that it mostly stays out of my eyes.  It fits 20 perfectly :-D.

I decided to knit a dandelion on the top instead of a big sun pom pom and guess what!

I saw the first dandelion of the year as I carried it in from the Wool House yesterday.  

So what is 20 and the Sock Monkey studying on so hard?  The Iknitarod starts this Saturday.  Yes, in just over two days (!). And I don't have a pattern picked out yet :-o.  I've had a couple good choices set aside for several months now.  The front runner was a simple sweater with a pretty horizontal cable pattern across the yoke.  

For some reason I've decided that Baaxter really wants to be a zippered turtleneck with straight lines. Something sort of like this.

Unfortunately I can't find an existing pattern that looks like that (!).  

Now it's really a pretty simple sweater design.  I have very little concern that I couldn't figure out how to make it happen...eventually.  The only part that should give me any trouble is the top third of the sweater and if I get it wrong, I can just rip it back and try again. The problem?  

The Iknitarod.  

That I didn't "win" last year.  Remember that?  I hooked Maisie to my sled (my first mistake ;-) and nearly killed myself to get it done almost what, two weeks late?  Marcel sweater, win.  Keebler shawl, win.  Maisie sweater?  Sigh... 

Do I dare try to design and knit a custom sweater with no pattern?  In approximately two weeks time? 20's been pouring over the stash of knitting books and thinks it can be done.  Baaxter is a sheep of great confidence.   He's tough and level headed (unless there are cookies involved) and that would be a good way to describe his yarn.  

What do you think?  

Back to the Yarn Along - my book this week is The Book Thief by Markus Zusak.  Very good!

Joining in with Ginny...