My first venture into pullover knitting! It’s going to be exciting. I’m using a mashup of Elisha Laubacher’s raglan sweater and a couple of others running around my head, so it’ll be an exciting knit.

Armed with nothing but advanced mathematics and Debbie Stoller’s excellent SuperStar Knitting (which is really about sweaters with some extras thrown in), I’m attempting to make a cabled wool sweater, with celtic knotwork on the front (courtesy of iandcknit.blogspot.com) and cables running down the sleeves. This is half motivated (like all of my projects) by “I really want one of these sweaters and it’ll be fun to make one” and “Everyone else is going to be soooo jealous.”

Pattern Modifications:
-- Making a boatneck instead of a crew neck
-- Adding cabling to the front panel and sleeves
-- extending the waist ribbing all the way to the hem
-- Slightly longer sleeves (elbow length probably)

Progress Log:
Feb 5: Finished my swatches. I’m a little looser than the gauge given, so I’ll go down a needle size. The cables look gorgeous, but I’m glad I’m only doing a small patch. I wouln’t be able to keep track of more than two cables at once!

Feb 6: Cast on, frogged, cast on again (tubular cast-ons are really magic!) with smaller needles. The 32” needle I was going to use is too long for the neckline, so I’m switching to my trusty bryspun size 8/24-inchers for the moment. (I seriously use these for everything. I should get more, so I can stop switching my projects off of these. They’re just so nice!) I might switch back after the ribbing, if the size 8s won’t give me a good gauge.

Feb 9: About 6” in, maybe halfway through the raglan increases. (I really ought to count.) The sweater is not looking nearly as nice as the swatch. :( I hope it’ll get better after I block it.

Feb 13: Almost done with the increases, and the stitches are finally starting to get nicer looking. Adding a picture; this is probably the first time my camera has ever made something look better than it does in person haha. Unfortunately, my 1 AM pictures are consistently glamorous and the sweater is looking better than me right now.

Sweaters take a long time, I’m learning. I think I’ll keep the cable running all the way down the front; I don’t think I can manage a foot or more of K2P2 without anything to spice it up. I might add some funky cables along the sides, though. That would pull the sides in and emphasize that tiny (hahahahahah!) waist of mine.

Feb 17: Done with the raglan increases. I still need to move everything to scrap yarn and try the thing on again, but right now it looks pretty good. Of course, pretty good means it looks like a wooly chicken (the stitch-holders make the arms point out, and the whole business looks very silly), but the stitches are looking nice and it’s a pleasure to knit. I really love this wool. I know it’s cheap, and there’s lots of little vegetable bits, but it’s just so sheepy. I hope it wears well.

March 3: Done with the second cable repeat, and about 6 feet from the end of the first skein. I’ll work one more cable repeat and then a few inches of plain ribbing, and the body will be done! After that, I just need to add the sleeves, which should go pretty quickly. It looks good when I try it on, and it should get even better after I block it, because there’s a couple goofs that should just block out. (at one point, the cables were going in the wrong direction! Woops!)

March 7: Done with the body! It could probably be a bit longer, but it’ll probably stretch when I block it. I absolutely love how it looks! It makes me look a bit lumpy, but I am a bit lumpy, and with that cable running down the front, I kind of doubt that people are really going to be looking at my tummy. Besides, the cables on the sides (which are adorable) are distracting enough that I think this is probably the most flattering sweater I’ve ever owned. (Not that I have many.)

Some of the stitches are wonky-looking, but I’m sure that the weird snaggles will come out with a good washing. I’m not sure I want to go for the elbow length sleeves that I originally wanted. I forgot to do the sleeve cables (oops!) in the raglan section, and I like the way it looks right now, so I’ll probably add about an inch and then finish them off. It’ll keep the design a lot sleeker that way, I think.

March 8: Done! I love the short sleeves, and I can’t wait for the weather to be cold enough that I can reasonably wear this! Just needs to be washed and blocked now. It used a lot less yarn than I thought it would, since a lot of sweater patterns claim that they want 1000+ yards for a size 44. I guess it all goes into the sleeves?

March 9th: It’s finally finished drying (this thing’s going to be a pain to wash!) and I love it so much! The blocking killed a lot of the elasticity in the ribbing, which I wanted, so instead of stretching around, it has much more ease (or at least, less negative ease). I still haven’t woven in all of my ends (for shame) but I’ll certainly do that before I wear it in public.