It’s been a while since I’ve posted, so I have a backlog of images.

Here’s a picture of where I’ve got to so far:
I am doing both sleeves at once as I’m worried that I don’t have enough yarn left to get both to the right length. This leaves me with two options: get them both to elbow length and stop there, or order more yarn over the net. I’m going with the later, a bit of a pain from Europe, but if I’m going to spend months on this thing it had better be right…
I wish I had taken a picture when I tried it on the other day, when I had put all the stitches onto spare yarn to try it on sans needles. It fits well- is very snug and curvy, and has a higher neckline than I expected. Very flattering.
Now I am at a more exciting part, knit-wise: decreasing stitches and doing a finer rib to shape the sleeves. It’s working nicely with the yarn’s striated colors, and is looking really good, I think. From here, it goes to an even finer rib and fewer stitches, then moves back to its former 2X2 rib, but in smaller numbers and with subsequent decreases, to form graceful narrow sleeves.

I am including several notebook sketches- first, a projected image of the finished product, done before I had really tried it on. Only if I become a walking skeleton will it ever look like this on. It, in fact, is quite form-fitting, not at all drapey as shown.

Lastly, a turtleneck version-Maybe with the bodice triangle NOT in rib….There are really a lot of possible variations- I really love that the whole thing is seamless, there is something so elegant about a design this simple and structurally sound…

I tried, unsuccessfully, to pick up more yarn during a week back in the USA. I’m in France now, with no LYS in sight, let alone a good one!
What was odd was that I couldn’t get this yarn at any of the shops I tried in New York City!
I had bought the yarn, while ago now, in new haven, and then sat on it…
The store DID have the same KIND of yarn, but no more of the same color.
My search led me to some really great places though.
“School Products” in NYC is an amazing resource, full of beautiful and luxurious yarns- camel, alpaca, cashmere, you name it. It has many odd lots and what appears to be an ever-changing selection…
My beloved P&S fabrics, down near Canal Street, which is normally a gold mine of affordably priced stuff, was having a huge sale and therefore had got rid of almost everything. They are about to move to new digs across the street and were busy trying to empty out. No luck there.
I also visited or called on all of the downtown yarn stores I could find, including three very precious boutiquy numbers, one on ave A, one in the west village, and a knit café on 14th st. All nice enough, but no cascade “fascination” in sight...
The big dud in the New York yarn store lot is Pearl Paint’s craft store, which does have yarn and needles, but largely stocks garish novelty yarns, and never has enough of one thing to really make anything bigger than a scarf. They should either give up the yarn side of things, or be more serious, but either way, I got the strong sense that they are stretching themselves too thin. What’s wrong with just being a good, professional art supply store?

Lastly, I have found some other patterns that use this same triangle bodice. Here is one, also a vintage pattern reworked and sold as a kit by White Lies Designs (http://www.whiteliesdesigns.com/) They have some really nice vintage patterns, and this one, “Myrna” caught my eye some time ago. They call it a “fan-shaped bodice”…

More oddly, is the version I found right here in Cassis, the small fishing village in the south of France, where I am spending the summer. There is a boutique here, pretty deeply unfashionable, for older ladies. The other week, hanging in there window I spied two short sleeved stripped acrylic machine knit versions of mine, although, like “Myrna” they had a more plunging neckline.I will try to snap a decent photo of these, if possible.I was really shocked to see them there, and thought about trying them on.