Here's a sweater perfect for the holidays.  It is knit of a sport weight wool and trimmed with a "fake fur" type of synthetic in a garter stitch which gives a dressy element and a very cozy neckline.  It is a flattering style for all body types and can be blocked out more or less to give a shape hugging outline or a more flowing silhouette. 
 The concept was to start with a beautiful lace, cable pattern and create a flow of the pattern into a round yoke.  Because the lower part of the sweater is basically a  6/2 rib , this was accomplished by using the percentage method of decreasing for the yoke and adapting it to the pattern.  In other words, there are 3 decreases in the yoke to shape it.  For the first decrease, the pattern went from a 6/2 rib pattern with the lace pattern in it to a K4 P2 rib, at the next decrease row the pattern becomes a K2 P2 rib.  In this way the correct number of stitches is reduced for shaping and the patterns flow into each other.
This pattern is available for purchase on ravelry. http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/camille-9

A new design: Cables and Lace Cardigan

As most knitters do, I like to read pattern books while knitting. I have quite a collection from various designers and am always inspired by their work.
I was flipping through my copy of Sock Innovation by Cooke a not to long ago and saw her sock design called Sunshine. All the socks in this book are designed for someone and this certain someone was named Sunshine. Anyway, I was intrigued as she blended a pretty lace pattern with a cable int he same 6 stitch vertical area, WOW...
And then I noticed that every other row was just knit and pearl. Even better. I have no trouble doing a pattern row on each row IF I'm working in the round. The sweater that I had in mind for my next project was a cardigan so either I knit in the round and include steek stitches to cut or find an interesting pattern that I can work from the right side of my knitting while knitting flat. Here it is! I ordered some Stroll sport from Knit Picks right away to see how this might knit up.
I was very pleased with the results...so cast on for a cardigan. The gauge is 6 st. per inch on #4 needles. I'm working up a size 40 so ordered 11 balls of 5 gms. This sweater will have a border added after it is knit so I added 3 extra stitches to the 21 pattern repeats to have a 2 stitch twisted cable and a pearl stitch on the edge. The last stitch is pearled on the right side and knit on the wrong side creating a nice place to pick up the stitches for the front band. I'm not positive what the front band will look like as yet. Thoughts are: lace with garter, simple yo, knit 2 tog. or possibly the twisted garter stitch border I've used before that was inspired by Grimes' book on French Girl Knits. Anyway...more on that later. The sweater will be a cardigan with v neck shaping, all over pattern and raglan sleeves. After blocking the lace will be more apparent but I like the fact that my shaping is done for me because this is basically a ribbed sweater.  It will shape in nicely for the waistline.   A sport weight gives it great versatility for wearing along on warmer days but not to heavy to add a jacket of colder ones. More on this soon.