Stash-busting

I know it's practically summer (over here anyways), but I finally figured out what to do with some gorgeous yarn that's been sitting in the stash for too long.
It's Lorna's Laces Bullfrogs and Butterflies in the Black Purl colorway. I originally wanted it to be a lacy and cabled cardigan from the Holiday 2005 issue of Vogue Knitting, but I just couldn't get gauge. So I shoved it into the stash, and thought about it from time to time... 'could I get gauge today?' was the thought always running trough my head. Well, I give up on that idea (do I really want a cardigan with a worsted/aran weight yarn knitted on US11 needles? ) when I saw this ad in the Holiday 2006 issue of Vogue Knitting.
Click on it to make it bigger - that cardi is BEAUTIFUL and well suited towards handpaints because Alchemy Yarns of Transformation make beautiful handpainted yarns. [Sidenote - I don't think scanning a magazine ad is copyright infringement, because I included all the info in the ad, and, well, it's an ad. It's meant to get people interested in their product and I'm posting it for free. If I'm wrong, let me know and I'll remove it.] So I checked out the company's website (not having written down the name of the pattern) and I couldn't find it! Later, with the ad in front of me, I found it. I did not recognize it (the Naturalist) because the picture on the pattern was crap. Look at it on their website, or here. Click on the link for the Naturalist Cardigan and you'll get a bigger picture.

Same cardigan, same yarn, but it looks totally sloppy and unsophisticated in the picture! Why did they do that? I wouldn't buy the pattern, looking at THAT picture!! To be sure about the style I googled it and came up with a non-modelled picture form the designer's website. Here's the flickr picture. Again, it looks clean and sopisticated. So I'm going for it, but with only 2 inches of ease, and not the 4 or 6 modelled above. Even the sleeves look too big on her! Now I'm using a different yarn at a different gauge so I'll make it up myself, but this isn't IP theft, because frankly, no one can own the idea for a raglan sweater with waist shaping and seed stitch hems, collars, cuffs and buttonbands, and I may make it a v-neck. It looks sort of like a v-neck in the ad, because the top buttons are undone, and the scarf obscures the neckline, but I think I like it better anyways. But I won't cast on until the fall, so that's all for now.

I've gotten pretty far on the lace and cables capelet:
I knitted an applied i-cord on the right side, and have started on the collar. the number of stitches increases rather quickly, so it will be wider the area decreased by the v-neck shaping. I hope it looks okay, because I'm thinking about using a similar style of collar on an original project, and I have a lot to learn about collars, and finishing techniques in general. So I'm going to knit as the instructions indicate and hope that it all works out in the end. Note that I added the i-cord to tie in the black yarn with the red handpaint, it's not in the instructions. I'm thrilled about the placemet of the double decreases in the pattern, because it makes the capelet shoulder-shaped! Cool!

Ivanova