Sample workshop: asymetrical cables

I have been umming and aaahing about making a jumper for Patrick, one that should be glorious, fitting for the most attractive man around… classic, challenging my creativity AND fun to knit, phew… no pressure.

So I flicked through Ravelry for inspiration, and inspiration I did find. I like the Urban Aran Cardigan, adapted by Jared Flood’s uh, it’s soft – but definitely male, sophisticated – yet not too fancy. Here are some samples, which I am very pleased with, needless to say this is yarn from Bendigo again (yarn ‘Luxury’, shade ‘Blue Denim’).

I knitted this 8 ply with 3.75mm needles. Alas – the project was discarded… these nice cables need to have a 2:2 background, this, AND the color, are just too similar to David’s cable jumper I knitted last spring… let’s do something new!

Cliffhanger Knitting

You all know the feeling – ‘who dunnit?’, ‘what next?’, ‘how on earth?’, ‘can’t wait to see how this will have a happy ending?’. That’s about summing up what this project has been about…

I have started such a project last Saturday. Since I am really keen to explore sleeve heads, once and for all I want to understand the rationale behind a well fitting and nicely knitted top down sleeve head AND I want to explore all of Elizabeth Zimmermann’s patterns  in which she just gives the idea and the principles (and percentages!) to work it out for yourself – her Kangaroo-Pouch Sweater (it’s in her book Knitting without Tears) had been on my list of ‘must knits’ for some time. Added to that – I have accumulated a number of leftover yarns from all my Bendigo Woollen Mills projects, all 8 ply and somehow the colors work together well.

Knitting the hem was an adventure in itself, look at this. As I knitted during Esther’s soccer game, all the mums were wondering why I had knitted the name and date on the inside of the hem… I wonder now myself, this is a great feature to include in a future project (to leave it on the outside!).

For the lining of the hem, I chose a slightly thinner yarn, so it wouldn’t be such a thick hem, and I also chose 1/2 needle size smaller for this section. I worked the lining of the hem back and forth, so I could knit the name and date in. After the name section was completed, I skipped one return (purl) row and knitted it, to achieve the ‘ridge’ for the turn. Then I changed to my actual needle size and started working the body in the round until I completed as many rows as the hem lining was deep. (This might have been a row or so more than the hem lining, since that was knitted in a thinner yarn and a thinner needle, remember?) In the following row, I picked up every second cast on stitch from the hem and knitted it together with every second stitch of that row – bingo!

And the best is yet to come (working the shoulders, steeking the armhole, knitting the sleeve heads and the collar)! Talk about ‘adrenalin rush knitting’!