bridges falling, not enough time for knitting

Re the Minneapolis bridge--that's pretty much what I always expect bridges to do when I go across them. It's hard to drive across a bridge with your eyes closed...

Okay. I'm starting on another project that I'm making more complicated by not using the yarn called for in the pattern. It's that Sadie sweater with the ribbed shawl collar off the Berroco site. They use Softwist, which is 100 yards per skein, with a gauge of 20 st= 4" on size 8 needles.

I'm using--or wish to use--a totally scrumptious yarn--alpaca, superfine alpaca, and silk--that has 240 yards to the skein and works up at about 16 st = 4" on size 7 needles.

I can't quite get my head around whether I have enough yarn or not. I *think* so. If you have like 100 stitches in Softwist, you have--um--20 inches? (100/20=5 x 4, right?). If I have 100 stitches in my yarn, I've got 25 inches. So to get 20 inches, I'd need, well, 16 x 5, or 80 stitches. So I would multiply the # of stitches called for in the pattern by .8? Or if a sweater size calls for 20 hanks of yarn at 100 yards, or 2000 yards, I'd need 1600 yards of my yarn? If that's right I can only manage--maybe--a size medium. Maybe I could wear it without buttoning it.

Plus I want to make it in the round instead of in pieces (I mean, if you're going to make something difficult, you might as well make it *really* difficult, right?).

No, I still want to do the Apple Laine socks and Schaefer Anne socks, and I'm still working on the Cannon Beach socks, and I haven't forgotten about the violet heather alpaca lace socks and the basketweave socks--I'd just like to work on something that uses needles larger than size 1.

Um--and some cables. There's a jacket pattern in Classic British Knits I've wanted to make since I first saw it years ago, and I've spent years looking for just the right shade of mossy heather green shetland (one of those "I'll know it when I see it" colors), but I've decided the greige wool I got from Smiley's last year would do just fine. Not as pretty as the rose heather the model photo shows, but everyone's always wowed by cables (including me), and I think this yarn may be weather-resistant enough to stand up to an autumn mist--if, in fact, we ever get such a thing again in this age of global warming and radical weather changes. Seems like it's been a long time since we got the kind of rain that isn't really rain, it's just the air full of water, condensing gently on your skin. Seems like mostly what we get is no rain or downpours. No real spring, no real fall.

*sigh*

I took about a zillion pics of the Ts the past couple of nights and can't seem to narrow them down to my favorite 6 or 8 to post here, so I may have to just post them all onto Picasa and let you choose your favorites yourself. :)