Cables

Remember this?  This is a sample panel knitted from a mystery chart posted on a Facebook group I belong to.  The sweater it relates to uses two of these panels side by side up the front to create a very modern take on the cabled sweater - asymmetric and unusual.

I prefer a balanced, symmetrical approach, but I also like a challenge.  Someone at the Spinners and Weavers group asked me if I chose my knitting patterns solely on the basis of the level of difficulty.  Perhaps I do, but this would not qualify - it's a very straightforward chart with only one cable crossing at a time.

So then - how to make it into a jumper since there was no pattern as such?  I had decided on a DK weight yarn and went out to buy a denimy blue.  I bought 700 gms of an unusual colour somewhere between a mustard and an acid green.  It actually took about 425 gms, but better safe than sorry.

I knitted a little swatch - cast on thirty stitches and knitted about ten rows.  Then I checked how many stitches per inch I was getting.  Answer 7.  So I just multiplied half my hip measurement by 7 and that gave a notion of how many to cast on.  I used a twisted rib.  The panel was 41 stitches wide so two plus a one stitch divider gives 83.

We scanned in the original chart and found a way to flip it so that the cables could be mirrored rather than placed side by side.  This was a good decision, since it added the symmetry I was looking for.

The armhole decreases followed a standard shape for a set-in sleeve and then I had to decide where to scoop the neckline.  This took two tries since at first it was too high when I offered it up. Alongside the front I began the plain back in reverse stocking stitch and finished that at roughly the same time so I could tack the pieces together to test the fit.

So then the sleeves.  Measuring my biceps gave me the target width for the top of the sleeve, multiplied by 7 which was the stitches per inch.  Measuring my wrist gave the starting point for the cast on.  It happened that the row gauge was also 7 so I knew if the sleeve seam had to measure 17 inches how many rows I had in which to increase from the cast-on stitches to the top of the sleeve measurement, so that gave the rate of increase.

I did try picking up the sleeves and knitting top-down but the pick up looked ugly in the reverse stocking stitch  so I went with separate sleeves.  I knit them both at the same time flat on straight needles.  I used the instructions for the sleeve-head of Geiger as it is a complex shape, but once I had sewed them in place it was clear that they were too deep so I took them back and shortened the sleeve-head by doing the same number of decreases but in fewer rows.  They fit much better now and should settle in wear.

I decided to use an applied I-cord to finish the neckline - simple and quick.

All this is why knitting is not what you might call a mindless activity.