I finally finished the hood this morning! This is some sort of record for me: look how much I’ve gotten through in the last 3 weeks and one day. Certainly all of the baseball and debates have been helping, but I’m still pretty pleased. I obviously haven’t blocked yet, since this is curling all over the place (esp the shoulders), and I haven’t sewn the hem in place, but all of the ends are at least woven in. Yay for progress!
The best part of this is that I finally made myself attempt the kitchener stitch to bind together the cable at the top of the hood. My verdict on the stitch: not impossible, but certainly worth its reputation. I loved the result. I think grafting this way would be a breeze for stockinette now that I have the rhythm down, but figuring out how to make it flow with the cables was something of a trick. I ended up (after a bit of trial and error) just turning it inside out for the purl stitches and working from the inside. It took a bit of work to figure out where to make the turn to make it look right, but on the whole, I think it worked out well. You can only see the seam on two stitches, so i’m pretty happy. 
Hopefully in the detailed hood shot, you won’t even be able to make it out at all!
