Every year I allow myself a sweater’s worth of yarn from Green Mountain Spinnery’s Rhinebeck booth. Usually it’s Mountain Mohair, but this year I’m trying Vermont Organic. And as usual, Thea’s got a pattern I can’t resist.

Observations: the Vermont Organic is wonderfully light, even with all the extra fabric of the deep pockets. It produced exactly the kind of loose, fuzzy grandpa sweater I was going for. Cable definition definitely decreases after blocking.

Mods:

1. Having done the matching hat hat already, there was no way on God’s earth I was going to K5tog for a whole sweater. So those M5s changed to M3s with yarn wrapped twice each time. It’s fine.

2. As with all cardigans, I added pockets. I made them wide and short to fit a hand or an iPhone lying on its side. Pockets were made over the first 50 stitches from center edges. This is wider than they needed to be, for sure, but i kinda like the extra-deep result. Details below.

3. Went down a needle size for all ribbing.

4. Measuring my other cardigans, most are between 13-15” to underarm, so I added 2” to the length, dividing at 13” instead of 11”. I am 5’6”.

5. Added a bit of short row shaping at the back collar to prevent gapping.

Sleeves
19” sleeve hole circumference.
P/u 94st. 18 purl st at underarm.
Decreases every 5 rows for 13 cable repeats to 54st, which is a loose cuff. If it bugs me I’ll re-do it narrower.

Blocking
Comparing the WIP to another drop-sleeve sweater that I love (GMS Horseshoe pullover), I find that the extra-fabric-under-arms problem with drop-shoulder designs is, perhaps paradoxically, less of an issue when the body is quite wide. So I’m wet-blocking the body pre-seaming for additional width.

Process
I completed the back first, then knit the R and L front simultaneously with two balls on a long set of needles to make sure I did all the decreases at exactly the same rows.

For some reason this button band didn’t want to come out right. Took three tries before I was happy with it.

Purple cork buttons purchased at Rhinebeck for $9. Nice and lightweight.

Pockets
These are fairly invisible pockets that open on the side.

I divided for pockets right after the hem, at the first cable row. You’ll start by making the front of the left pocket. RS: Work in cable pattern across 50 stitches (or fewer, for narrower pockets). Turn.

Using a second, shorter set of needles, slip your first stitch purlwise on pocket WS for a neater edge. Work in pattern across the pocket WS to button band edge. Turn. (You’re going to wind up with an opening at the button band edge which you’ll close when you pick up stitches for the button band).

Work in pattern back and forth on the front pocket flap until it reaches your desired height (I did four pattern repeats), ending with WS. Break yarn and leave left pocket flap stitches on a stitch holder.

Now you’ll make the inside of the left pocket: pick up 45 or 50 st BEHIND the pocket flap at the base, right at the top of the hem. (I often do about 5 fewer stitches than the front pocket because the inside will be stockinette, which isn’t as tight as the cables. But it doesn’t matter much.)

RS: knit stockinette across the picked-up inner pocket stitches, behind the front pocket flap, switching to the cable pattern after 50 (45) stitches. Knit in cable pattern across the back of the sweater until you’re 50 st from the end of the row. Put those remaining 50st on a holder (you’ll kit them later as the front of the pocket), and pick up and knit 45-50st behind them for the inside of the right pocket. Turn.

WS: Purl the first 45-50 st, then work in cable pattern to the last 45-50 st, then purl those 45-50 st.

You’ll continue this way until the length of the body catches up with the length of your first pocket: stockinette for the inside of the pockets, cable pattern for the rest of the row. Again, for me this was four pattern repeats but you can make them as tall as you want.

When you’ve reached the height of your first pocket, use your shorter needles to work the front flap of the second pocket in pattern (slipping that selvage edge st as with the first pocket and ending with WS). Now you have two pocket flaps, which you’re going to join to the body on the next row.

RS: work in pattern across the entire body while joining pocket flaps to the sweater body. On the 50 pocket stitches, you will work the front and back stitches together in pattern: so for a knit stitch, you put your needle through one st from your front needle and 1st from back needle. (If you’ve gone down to 45 st for the stockinette inner pocket, just skip 5 stitches evenly spaced on the inner pocket. I placed my skips in the horseshoe cables.)

You’re done with pockets and can continue with the rest of the pattern as written.