Doing Math
Yanno, it occurs to me I should do a little bit of math to figure out how the Dragonskin pattern will line up with the neckline I'm planning. I need at least a vague idea of how many rows are going to be between the bottom and the point at which the neckline starts, but that's easy to get.
Also I'm pretty sure I can get a sweetheart neckline by the simple expedient of starting where I would for a v-neck and then decreasing every other row instead of every four rows, then stopping when I have as many stitches as my handy pattern suggests. And since Dragonskin already has an every-other row decrease, I'm all set.
The sleeves are causing me issues. I want a slit effect, but I'm not certain how to edge them so they don't curl. And I'd really like to get a tendril effect in somewhere--Oriental dragons have whiskers--and though the sleeves seem like the place to do it I'm unclear as to how to integrate the i-cord.
In the waiting-for-yarn period, meanwhile, I'm messing around with mitered squares, playing with the fingering weight acrylic my grandmother gave me. It's coming out acceptable, so I might actually try to make something out of it for her.