FO: Cable Cardi

Let me take you back to Spring '06, to my pre-blogging days...The Knitting Olympics had recently wrapped up. Crash had just won the Oscar for best picture of the year. When you turned on the radio, you heard "You're Beautiful" by James Blunt or "Bad Day" by Daniel Powter. Early footage of Snakes on a Plane was hitting the internet. Speculation over the veracity of Suri Cruise's birth was rampant. The Republicans weren't expecting to get whupped in November. Heroes was just a twinkle in the eye of NBC...

One day, while in my LYS, I purchased a bunch of Louisa Harding Kashmir Aran I found on sale. I also picked up Knitting on the Edge that day. I went home and impulsively thought up a way to combine an edging from my new book with my new yarn for a sweater. I took some perfunctory measurements. Frivolously, I cast on without having devised a complete plan.

Before I knew it, I had a fairly long back piece. A few, improvised bind offs and decreases later and there was something resembling armhole shaping. Not long after that, a semblance of shoulder shaping existed. Eventually, I had an entirely bound off back piece.

I was still having fun and blissfully unaware that I was in over my head. Naturally, I cast on the front pieces. Right around the time I finished the edging, I realized that I would have to make a decision about button bands. See how blase I was being about this? I hadn't even considered button bands until right then. I decided to continue a garter stitch border to avoid having to pick up button bands some day. It's a defendable decision and one I don't regret. But it's also another example of the lackadaisical approach I was taking to this so-called sweater.

I made similarly informal decisions about where to start the V-neck and the rate of decreases for the V-neck. Otherwise, I just copied what I'd done on the back.

By the time I had the two front pieces bound off, a suspicion began to creep up on me. A suspicion that this project was about to seriously hit the wall. Because while I now had a back and fronts which seemed reasonably acceptable, I had committed myself to set-in sleeves. It was dawning on me that I didn't really know how to shape a sleeve cap and was therefore headed for trouble. I pushed the suspicious aside and tried to keep going on making this sweater.

I sewed the fronts to the back and promptly realized that the garter stitch bands on the fronts didn't have anything matching on the back. So, I picked up stitches along the back of the neck and worked a few rows of garter stitch and then sewed the edges of that to the garter stitch button bands. Another random decision, but it's not half bad in light of that.

To continue procrastinating the sleeve issue, I went out and bought some buttons. But after that, there really wasn't anything left to do but start the sleeves.

I cast on for the sleeves, which was actually quite bold considering that by now, I was fully aware that I was about to be stumped. I found this Knitty article, which really only served to frighten me. (This other Knitty article, the one that Ali pointed out to me, the one which ultimately saved me, I did not find.)

So there I was in the Spring of Ought Six with the first sweater of my own design hopelessly out of my reach. I did the only sane thing there was to do. I shoved all the bits and pieces into a ziploc bag, buried said bag in the stash and forgot all about it.

Flash forward to Spring '07. By now I have a blog. Out of nowhere, I start thinking about this sweater again. One day, when I've got nothing else to write about, I dig up the sweater and share it with the blog.

What followed was an amazing and wonderful wealth of advise and encouragement. You guys gave me the tools and motivation to dive back in and finish the sweater. Thank you!!



All in all, it came out better than I expected. I don't completely love the way the shoulders and sleeve cap all come together, but I can definitely live with it. And I learned so much! Meanwhile, the length of the body and sleeves are perfect and the overall fit is pretty much exactly what I was going for. I've already been wearing it often. It is ideally serving it's purpose of something to throw over a tee shirt when I need just a touch more warmth.

I feel so much better now this is finished and I'm happy with my new sweater. Thank you all, again, for giving me the help and kick in the pants I needed to get this done.

Progress and Distraction

Thank you guys for all the encouragement to press on with my cable cardi. I've been working on it a little bit and have made some progress on those pesky sleeves. My biggest concern/problem/hinderance was fear of mangling the shaping of the sleeve cap. Ali very kindly pointed me to this cool knitty article. And Margaret had a brilliant suggestion to put in a lifeline right before starting the cap shaping and then just go for it.

I've gotten right to the point of inserting that lifeline. I knit both sleeves at the same time. These are pictures of just one sleeve, but the other one is exactly the same. Well, not exactly, exactly but that's another story. Not a very good story, though, so I'm not going to tell it. Suffice it to say there's a teeny, tiny, almost imperceptible difference between the sleeves. Mistakes were made and if one were to play the blame game, then Past Jean would be found culpable. But we're not here to point fingers so Present Jean has taken (half-assed) measures to adjust for the difference and feels it's important to just move on now. Hopefully Future Jean won't be pissed at us both for being such slackers.





I used stitch markers to pin it closed then slipped it on my arm to make sure it's wide enough and long enough. I think it is. Theoretically, it'll hit right about at my elbow, which was my general idea way back when.

About three rows ago I realized the cables on the fronts and back turned every sixth row. I've been cabling on the sleeves every fourth row. Whoops! No, no, wait...I don't mean "Whoops", I mean "I meant to do that". Yeah, that's right, it was totally on purpose and fully intentional. See, I really need just to go forward. The likely hood of this sweater getting finished anytime soon is tenuous enough. If I don't allow for some let's say, "quirks", this darn sweater will never get done. Therefore, the cables on the sleeves will continue every fourth row. The fact that it's a mistake will just stay our little secret, 'kay?

So anyway, I'm going to insert that lifeline and then I'm ready to start shaping the sleeve cap.

Do you sense a "but" coming? An explanation for the "Distraction" in the title? You're right! You've got to get up pretty early in the morning to get anything past you folks.



Misti Cotton (83% Peruvian Pima Cotton, 17% Silk, Papaya color) purchased today at A Mano Yarn Center.

This yummy yarn is destined to be this:


This is Valpuri, a free pattern from Berroco. Did I mention it's free? And, c'mon, look how cute!

Tina, the designer of the Mad Color Weave socks gets the credit for being the enabler who brought this pattern to my attention.

The sleeve caps for my cable cardi are just going to have to wait. Valpuri here I come!

It's An Oldie, But Is It a Goodie?

Living in Los Angeles, where we just barely have seasons, I sometimes say that one can lose track of the time of year, the way you lose track of the days of the week when you're on vacation.

Recently, I've had cause to believe the (almost) lack of seasons has possibly encouraged my internal, passage-of-time clock to become actually more sensitive.

The sweater I'm about to show-and-tell is a case in point. I started working on this sweater exactly one year ago. I charged into the project, was completely monogamous with it, made lots of progress, then stopped abruptly before completion. I put it and the remaining yarn in a ziploc bag and forgot about it. It may very well have stayed forgotten. But last week, out of nowhere, I started thinking about it again. I didn't see it in the ziploc. I was not organizing the stash. I was not doing a project inventory. I just spontaneously remembered this sweater. My only explanation is my subconscious reminded me of the thing I was working on exactly this time last year.

So I've decided to drag this back out and reassess. I might try to finish it up. I might put it back in the ziploc and forget about it for another year. Not sure. Either way, though, I figure I'll air it out on the blog.

The yarn is Louisa Harding Kashmir Aran in color 01. I got it on sale at my LYS. I decided to design and knit something for myself with it. (It had been 50% off, I think. If the design didn't work out, I wouldn't stress about what I'd spent on the yarn.)

I wanted a spring to summer cardigan. Something cute to toss on over a tee shirt. It was to be long and narrow with probably 3/4 length sleeves. I'd be willing to make the sleeves shorter if I ran out of yarn.

Back when I lived in Phoenix, I would carry a cardigan with me more during the insanely hot summers than any other time of year because the air conditioning indoors is so aggressive. Someone once called me "queen of the twin set". To this day, I hardly ever leave the house without a 'what if I get cold?' back up plan. This sweater was meant to fit that back up plan category.

Here are the fronts:



And here's the back. (That's not waist shaping, it's just that the edges are curling in and I couldn't get them to lie flat for the picture.)



The edge which leads into the cables is Brunhilda's Broom Border from Knitting on the Edge.



I bought pretty, mother of pearl buttons. You'll notice they're not attached, though.



I seamed the fronts and backs at the shoulder. I started the sleeves and stopped just a few rows short of finishing the edging. The sleeve cuffs are together on one circular needle in this picture.



I think the biggest reason I stopped working on this was I don't really know how to do the math to figure out the shape and size the sleeve cap should be. I had made the fronts and back for set-in sleeves. I just kind of eyeballed the bind offs and decreases. But when faced with the prospect of knitting a sleeve cap which would need to fit the arm hole, I got stumped.

I think the other reason I stopped working on it was that I'm not sure it's turning into what I want. I think it's cute, but I'm worried it's too cute. Are those scalloped edges really what I want to wear? The fact that I designed and knit it myself would go a long way towards my wearing it, for sure. But the fit would have to be good, too.

See, I've hit this wall of uncertainty. I'm not willing to rip out the work but I'm not sure I'm motivated to go forward.

The thing is, if I am going to try to finish this, now is the time of year to do so.