Cables, Cables Everywhere!

I finished my capelet/poncho type thing.  The pattern is Ebb Tide and it's actually a fairly easy and fast project.  I knit it in Yarn Love Amy March DK in the Orchid colorway.  I wouldn't recommend this as a first cabled project, but if you've made a cable or two, and understand how they work, I think this would be an easy project.  The pattern isn't charted, but it's so simple that it's easy to knit from written directions.  

The depth and texture of these huge, dramatic cables is amazing.  There's nothing subtle here - you could lose a small animal in the cable twists!  This pattern does have sizing, but there's not a lot of guidance as to how to choose a size.  I measured around my full bust including my arms.  That measurement was almost equal to the small size.  I decided to knit the medium because I'm pretty sure it isn't supposed to have zero or negative ease.  When I finished the main part of the capelet and joined the ends, I tried it on.  It felt huge.  So I knit the neck edging using one size smaller needle than I used for the body and that tightened up the neck perfectly.  You can see that while it has a wide neck, it's not falling off of Fifi's shoulders.

Now I just need to wait six months or so before I can wear it!  Have a great weekend!

Cables. So. Many. Cables.

I've been doing some cables - big, chunky, textural cables!  There's nothing subtle about these.  You could lose a small child in the texture of these cables.  I'm actually through with the most intense sections of the cables now, and I'm more than halfway around on this capelet.  It's an easy pattern to knit because there are a lot of plain rows between the cabling rows - you need some space for the cables to settle in when they're this dramatic.

We're trying to get Caleb set up for his first apartment around here.  I'm trying to balance what he needs, what he wants, and what would be nice to have with the size constraints of the apartment.  He's brushing up on some cooking skills, and wants to do some cooking there, but we'll have to see how much he actually does and actually has time for.  Thankfully, College Station has more places to pick things up than Galveston does, and there's always Amazon if he needs other kitchen things.

A Crash and Burn, But Also, Rising From The Ashes

In April I started knitting the Sous Sous pullover.  Before I began I looked at Ravelry projects to see what other knitters had said about it.  There were a few who knit it exactly as written and were happy with it.  More of them had made changes, and while a few of those were for fit, most were to correct issues with the pattern.  I knew this going in.  I made notes.  I read the pattern ahead of time.  I thought I had a plan.

Wow, was I wrong!  I was almost finished with the back before I ran into trouble, but when things went wrong, they really went wrong.  At that point you have two choices, stick with it and try to fix the problems, or just stop.  I chose the second.  Moving forward would have required moving backward (which I don't have a problem doing, on general principle) and rewriting/refiguring part of the pattern.  It can be done, but I'm kind of on a time limit for this sweater since I was knitting it for the ESK 2nd Quarter Craft-A-Long.  If I'm going to have to do all of that, I don't want to feel rushed.

So I frogged it.  Then I went looking at patterns.  I started out looking at sweaters, but I decided to knit something completely different.

This is Ebb Tide.  It's a poncho, or maybe a capelet.  I'm not sure where one ends and the other begins.  These seriously chunky cables add a lot of texture to something that's mostly stockinette stitch.  I'm knitting it in Yarn Love Amy March DK in Orchid (the same yarn I attempted to use for Sous Sous).

At some point I would like to knit the Sous Sous pullover.  I love the look of the finished sample, but first I will have to sit down and figure out what is going on.  Or maybe I'll find another pattern and just plug in the stitch pattern.  I don't have to decide that now though.

Have a great weekend!