A rose is a rose...

Alice Starmore's "Mary Tudor " in progress, a photo by Asplund on Flickr.

Fortunately, possibly not by pure accident, I had already bought the yarn to knit Alice Starmore's "Mary Tudor" when I decided to at least try not to add to my stash for a while. Still haven't bought any yarn this year!

Thanks for your comments on "Henry VIII"! His sister Mary is just as delightful to knit: the astonighingly beautiful pattern is slightly trickier, but still easier as there is only one chart to follow instead of three and fewer colours. But what colours! I've said it before and I'll say it again: Alice Starmore for president!

My other main project right now is completely different, a single-colour brioche cardigan with hardly any patterns, but then I'm a polygamous knitter - there's nothing like a pile of different kinds of project to be able to choose what I feel like, or start something new with treasures from my stash. (My relationship to books is similar: facts, fiction, classics, modern etc in tempting piles.)

brioche cardigan: raglan sleeve

The only thing you could call a pattern is a double-knitted column in the middle of the sleeves. The increases are on each side of the column instead of near the edges, which I think looks nice. I've been struggling with the shoulder straps, testing different versions.

testing shoulder straps

My first attempt was the strap to the right. I didn't like it, but didn't rip it out at once. Instead I knitted the one to the left first to be able to compare them. An improvement I thought would do - but then I saw the wrong side. That's what I wanted! So, I'll rip them both and reknit them inside out, so to speak. All's well that ends well.

wrong side soon to be right side