Swatching

I love designing sweaters; there's so much knitted space to play with! But I don't enjoy the overwhelming feeling of not knowing what to do....but wanting to do something cool! Most of the time I can picture nearly the entire sweater as I cast on, but with this cardigan, I knit 2 whole sleeves before I knew if it would be a cardigan or pullover! Once coming to that decision, I still vascilated on what pattern to choose...which is exactly why knitters invented swatching! I swatched quite a bit this weekend, more than usual really butI really came to love the yarn and finally decided on the pattern.
This shows the first patterns I tried; on the right: a 9 st braid from my stitch-a-day calendar and on the left: some knit and purl patterns and a lacey cable attempt.

My husband voted and the following cable is the winner!(something about this design has made it impossible for me to make any decisions all by myself).
Sorry for the blurry shot...it's a modified Saxon Braid from one of Nicky Epstein's edge books (it's featured on the front, but I can't remember which book). It's very easy to make the ribs flow into the cable chart, which I like a lot. Hub chose this one because he thinks the flatter nature of the cable will be more flattering, less bulky and visually bulk-ing.
I had hoped to successfully knit a sweater a month this year(I joined the knitalong, for goodness sakes!) but I can't imagine finishing this before Thursday (Feb 1), since I only have about an inch of ribbing for the body (both sleeves are already finished). Anyhow, I'm not one for rules and I think that a total of 12 sweaters (or shawls) at the end of the year will be incredibly satisfying, whether each month has a sweater by it's end!