Rogue

While I'm waiting to ambush Madman with the camera while he's wearing his new sweater, I'll tell a little about it.
I knit myself a Rogue in a beautiful mossy green, finishing it in late 2006 or early 2007. I made the cardigan version, since I much prefer them to pullovers. (I've always found it hard to take off a pullover without flashing my lingerie at the world. And you can't ask just anybody "Excuse me, could you hold my shirt down so I can take off my sweater?")
So. Anyway.
Madman took one look at the sweater, fell in love with the cables, and asked if I could make a male version of it.
"Sure, no problem. I'll knit you one for your birthday! What color would you like?"
"Black."
My brain went "Erk! Black cables? I'll go mad..."
I tried to hint. "The cables might not show up very well in black."
He's not so good at taking the hints... "Oh, I'm sure it'll be fine!"
Perhaps if I had been up front about it, like "Trying to knit cables in black yarn will make me weep. Especially complicated cables. Complicated cables like in this particular sweater. In black. And trying to graft those cables will make me have to go lie down, or go drink a beer, or go lie down and drink a beer, every 5 minutes or 5 stitches, whichever comes first. And did I mention the weeping?"
But I had (rashly) let him pick the color, not said "You can have any color but the one you want."
It took f o r e v e r...
He chose the pullover version, and asked that it be a little longer than mine. I eliminated the waist shaping by skipping the decreases & increases, and used a fatter cable up the sides. I also made the kangaroo pocket a little deeper, to make it more useful to him.
When I got to the complex cables around the neck/hood, I did indeed weep. Even with the strongest light bulbs installed in the fixtures in the living room, I still had a difficult time seeing those black criss-crossing stitches. I couldn't work on it for very long at a time, because my eyes would go all wonky and I'd drop stitches and have the very devil of a time trying to figure out where they'd gone.
And the grafting. Oh my, the grafting... I thought the cabling was hard. The grafting made my brain hurt.
So, I finished his April '07 birthday sweater in October '08.

Next time, I'm picking out the color...