Knitting Cables With Alice

I’m knitting again!

I seem to do these posts every now and then. In any case, one of my mom’s friends from knitting camp came for a post-thanksgiving visit, and really kick started my winter knitting projects. I’d been lagging on some older projects for far too long, and having an excuse to sit around and knit was a really good thing. I got to the end of the first sleeve avove the cuff of the latvian dreaming sweater, and started a new sweater. That new sweater is what I’m here to talk about today. I’ll cover the other knitting progress in the coming weeks.

So I, uh, started a new sweater. With cables.

I should point out here that I’ve never made a cabled sweater before. Rather than design something simple, I flipped through some knitting patterns, and chose of all things, “Irish Moss” from Alice Starmore’s Aran Knitting.

For those non-knitters out there, this is a pretty rare book, long out of print and very highly valued. The designs, though a bit dated, are very easy to adapt into classic masterpieces, and they’re not exactly “entry level sweaters.”

Typical.

I’ve knit several Starmores before, but thusfar I’ve only done colorwork sweaters from her.

I also changed a few things about this sweater.

Also typical.

My modifications, I think are pretty straightforward, but none the less significant. They are:

• I’m knitting it in the round when the pattern called for a sweater knit in pieces.
• I omitted the ribbing, as the entire sweater is knit in a twisted stitch-ribbing (with cables) basically. So the ribbing was only decorative, and I like the way it looks when cable patterns start at the very bottom edge of the sweater.
• I’ve decided to knock off most of the filer stitches at the sides of the sweater, because I’m going for a 38-40 inch sweater not a 42-46 inch sweater. I think knocking off 18 stitches from the front and back was a little much (which is what I did at the bottom edge.) but I think a sweater with a little bit of tapering will be a good thing, so I’ll begin to increase after I have 2 inches completed, once I have a good idea of actual gage.
• I’m going to slit the neck open, and set in the sleeve to about shoulder width, but that depends on how many stitches I increase on the sides, and how the pattern looks. If I don’t increase enough to make it work, I’ll just make a gusset.
• I’ll slit the neck open to mid-chest, as I do on most of my sweaters so that the crew neck isn’t as restricting. The pattern seems like it will support this.
• I’ll knit the sleeves and saddles from the shoulder/collar down. That always seems to work well. Again, that’s in a while.

And so forth. I’m semi-weened from the cable needle, but I keep it around just in case.

And that’s about it. Unless you want the technical specs.

Yarn: Schoolhouse Press Quebecois

Needles: Addi Lace 3.0mm (US Size 2/2.5)

Color: Grey

Gauge: About 6 stitches to the inch in St. St. Or something close, I didn’t check closely, but it looks to be about right. There are ~238 stitches at the moment, so that seems to be about right given everything.

Ok that’s it, for real. More later. I might actually take pictures of this one. Imagine that.

tycho garen 09 December 2008