Okay, that's more like it!

This is how the correct pattern looks! I'm very pleased with how the points of the color pattern line up, but it was just not feasible to get every stitch in the pickup rows perfectly aligned. I blocked the swatch by pinning the center line first; this helped finesse the alignment. (As an aside, careful blocking would also help keep a pattern from going out of alignment.)

Well, that's about as far as I'm going to push Spine Rib and Spine Stitch for now, unless anyone has any suggestions they'd like me to try out. My next subject will be a topic I taught about many years ago: "The Four-Direction Sweater."  It has the same premise as the swatch above, ie. working in both directions from the center out. I think it's a natural progression.

Until next time.