Progress Pictures

Well, actually, I've decided not to include as many pictures as I was going to. Instead I'll just include the dramatic ones.
Like this one, of my Heart Harf.
So the bottom half, where the ribbing is, is basically what the scarf portion will look like. I'm going with ribbing since it doesn't curl and is a pretty classic scarf stitch.
I keep debating doing little cables instead of plain ribbing, but I don't want it to be too complicated.
As I said, the scarf bit is pretty straight forward, so I just did enough to get the idea.
Then the top half goes into the start of the hood section. This part I'm doing in stockinette as I figure it shouldn't curl too much. Also, ribbing would pull in too much to make the hood effective. I've done a number of increases here and it is actually time to switch from the short cables which function as straights to a longer cable which will function as a circular needle and better accommodate the larger number of stitches. My goal is to have the hood be 17 inches deep, which will hopefully accommodate a range of head sized. I settled on that figure by holding the end of the tape measure at the base of the back of my neck, then pulling it out until it was a little beyond my face. Very scientific. Of course, once I reach that measurement I can sort of try it on to see whether it works.
I do like my Denise Needles set and the ability to switch on the fly like this.
You can also see I've worked one and a half repeats of the heart cable panel, which might give you a better idea of how the panels are self contained.
In this picture to the right, you can see a close up of the detail of the cables along with the bobbles.
At the bottom of the picture is the bobble between the end of the upside down heart and the beginning of the right side up heart. This is the bobble the women at the store suggested I add.
This is also the bobble I was saying didn't work out well the last time I posted. I think it needs buffer rows on either side so it stands out more.
That's part of the reason I'm stopped at the halfway mark on the next repeat. I want to write down what I do to expand it and haven't had quite time to work on it.
Further up the piece, where the rib ends and the smooth stockinette begins, you can see the bobble between the panels. This is the bobble I added because I could just hear them saying it was needed.
I think it is working out. It does have more buffer rows below it than above it, but as I need an odd number of rows that is bound to happen (it is also a concern for the one in the panel), but I don't think it looks too unbalanced. Hopefully the one in the middle of the panel won't look unbalanced.
In other Harf news, the designer of the cable got back to me and said I could use it. She just asked me to reference her blog in the pattern credits, which I expected as I believe it's what she asks for on the blog explaining her project.

Fingers and Toes
I just have to work the thumb on the left hand mitt for mom and then I'm d-o-n-e. Well, except for mailing them.
And I'm through the gusset decreases on my BSG socks. A little less than 20 rows to work to the toe shaping.

Doilies
Oh, I have to e-mail my MIL. Aunt L sent the doily back (along with $20 for crochet thread, yipee!). She included a little note about how lovely it is but she needs it 12 inches, which my MIL already told me. But she forgot to mention how many she wants. sigh. The good thing about having this one back is now I can measure the different elements to try to determine how much more to work on the center, etc. It also moves the project along since I have one mostly done.

Ok, things have been crazy here at work, what with deadlines flying by unmet. That break at Christmas was lovely, but sent everything into a tailspin. The one good thing is my entire team is missing deadlines, so it's not like I'm a slacker. The bad thing is the Deadline Setter and I have been stomping around for months complaining that our team always meets deadlines and never gets credit for it. Now the powers that be are paying attention for once and we're all scrambling to make good on our claims. oops.