7 things and an almost sweater

A while back, Anna over at the Yarn Mansion tagged me for the 7 random things meme, so here goes:

1. I have a minor phobia of making (and to a certain extent answering) phone calls.

2. When I was a kid, this fear was so intense that I would pay my brother to make phone calls for me (this quickly ended when his voice changed).

3. To combat this fear, I worked three summers during college answering phones at a hotel reservations call center.

4. When I worked at the call center, I would talk so fast that people often wouldn't understand what I was saying. My callers would regularly call me "Violet." For the longest time, I couldn't figure out why. Then, I realized that the dialogue I was required to follow had me say, "My name is Laura. What city and state...." If you say "Laura. What," fast enough, it sounds like "Violet."

5. I'm from the South, but I usually don't have a Southern accent.

6. My Southern accent can come out in certain situations, but I can't do it at will. Sometimes I try, but it never works.

7. I've never gotten a speeding ticket or even been pulled over. I don't drive slow. I just always make sure there's someone else going faster than me. (Mom, I know you read this, I really don't drive too fast, I promise.)

I'm pretty sure that I'm the last person in blogland to do this one, so I'll skip the tagging.

Now, back to the knitting. Look! An almost finished sweater! This is #13 from Phildar Printemps 2007.

Sometimes I feel like I'm not supposed to like garter stitch, but the truth is that I do like it. A lot. Not just because it's super-easy either! It can be hard to find the right pattern for it, though. Baby patterns (like the surprise jacket) are obvious choices. Grown-up patterns w/ garter stitch are a little harder to pull off. Sarah's Rorschach definitely works.... and I think this cardigan pulls it off too.

Here's the detail on this sweater that I think makes the garter stitch work:

Those ribbed thingies were knit separately for both the front and the back. I'm not so sure that I executed them beautifully, but I like the effect anyway. On the downside, they did bring the total number of pieces to be seemed to nine (would have be twelve if I hadn't picked up the button and neck bands!). Now I just need to do the pockets and epaulets. Of course, I'm in no hurry to get those done since it's now super hot summer weather...