That’s what I chose. Thanks for all the opinions. I ended up going with a combo I hadn’t considered, really.

You can’t see the darker blue stripe from that angle. *try here*

As you can see, I opted to not wash the yarn and just knit from the cone. I’ve grown used to the gross, oily yarn already, but dragging the whole shebang around for photographing is silliness!

I didn’t get as crazy with the border as planned, but I love how it ended up. Picot hem, not provisionally cast on, but each bottom edge stitch picked up individually and knit with the next stitch on the needle (works well), an 8 row “floop” (do those have a real name?) in brown, 2 rows of the flecked blue, two rows orange, some pointy bits, another brown “floop” (this one much more difficult because I hadn’t changed colors right before the floop, making picking up stitches all from the same row a PAIN), and then on to the big scarab beetles. I can’t wait to get those done so I can get onto the main smaller beetle pattern.

We had a friend over yesterday who loved the floops and proclaimed that I need to make her a sweater with floops all up the arms. Talk about HELL! They are cute, though.

Nice yarn, eh? Rowan Harris 4 Ply, j a r e d.

I want to add a couple more colors to the insect sweater, just as teeny bits at cuffs, hem, and collar. Do I dare use the orange and white? Grey and orange? Green and white? Ahhhhhh!

I SWEAR I’m going to start knitting this today.

I’m happy with the big bug that’ll be the band around the bottom of the sweater, except in my excitement, I seem to have forgotten it needs 6 legs! That’s been rectified and the pointy bits across the bottom have been made taller. It reads well in these colors. Yay!

*see the whole thing* Doesn’t it look like a bug, itself?

The yarn is something else to knit with, and I don’t mean that in a good way. I’d read various complaints about oiled coned yarn, but bleah, you weren’t kidding! It’s rough and my hands feel so dirty and despite the novelty/awesomeness of knitting a whole sweater body with only 4 ends to weave in, I’m thinking I might skein the yarn and wash it before knitting. I’m just not sure I can take the pain. It is wonderful once washed, thankfully.

Now that I know my gauge (8.5 sts. per inch on freaking size 0 needles), I can be more serious about making the pattern for this. The more I think about it, the more complicated I make it. Right off, I’m thinking it needs to be a cardigan. I never make cardigans for myself, and I love them. All one piece with a yoke? Round or square neck? Inset sleeves with square neck? For now, I think I’ve settled on a yoke design with a line of big bugs marching across the bottom, with the main body covered in a small bug pattern, switching to the lice pattern stitch above the armpits. I think that will keep my option for a square or low round neckline open, because I’m worried anything but an extremely simple pattern will look odd if not done in a high round neck.

I’ve been looking lots at Oleana sweaters by Solveig Hisdal for detail ideas. Most of the sweater are worn with wrist warmers, but I’d like to incorporate some of the fanciness into the sweater itself.

Since I had to buy some new needles for this project (all my 0’s were in use- cripes), I placed an order with SpinBlessing.com for some Inox needles in various lengths, and Thimble Pads, which I am liking. They prevented the usual hole I manage to poke into my index finger when working on small needles for any length of time. They could be larger, as I managed to poke myself above and below it a bunch of times, but they are pretty effective. I’m also liking the Inox needles, though a quick inspection shows they’re not as well made as Addis. There are small cracks in all three needles where the metal meets the cord. It looks like the cord was put in and the metal crimped around. I’m worried about how well the join will hold up. At any rate, they were very inexpensive and are pleasantly slippery. I got a KA brand bamboo and a Crystal Palace bamboo, too (all circs- from a different store) and the metal join is as shitty as I remember. It stinks having to coax stitches off the cord and onto the needle. I was thrilled to learn there were bamboo circs made in such small sizes and who knows, with the right yarn, they might make my day. I think I’ll be sticking with the Inox for this project, though. The cords are so light, it’s almost like they’re not there. Definitely a pleasure to knit with them.

Oh, and SpinBlessing is great! I’ve placed two orders over the last week and they’ve both gotten here in a couple of days. Email communication’s fast and friendly. The whole experience could not be better.