Plum Cabled Sweater

Modell 509 by Gedifra

• Yarn: Queensland Collection Uruguay DK, 70% Merino Wool, 20% Alpaca, 10% Silk (124 yards / 50 g per ball), ~8.64 balls, color 05
  
• Needle: US 3 (3.25 mm) Knitpicks Circular Needle and bamboo DPNs

I know I haven't posted in a while, but I have been knitting (some, though less than I'd like). I had been wanting to make this sweater ever since late 2007 when I saw Smallbird's lovely silver-gray version. The cables are just plain drool-worthy (in my opinion, at least - I'm a sucker for a good cable!).

Of course, I finished it just in time for the weather to be mostly too warm to wear it (this is always a hazard in northern California - especially when one is using an alpaca blend - toasty!), but I will make it my mission to seek out a few cooler days in the next month or so when I won't be at risk of heat stroke if I wear it :)

The yarn:



I found the yarn to be very soft and pleasant to work with. The only slightly odd thing about it was the occasional little blebs of white fluff I found intermingled with the plies. If one was particularly large, I gently pulled it out, but otherwise, I generally ignored these. If there were more (many more), it would work well as a tweed, but as it is, there are simply a few random white flecks in my sweater. Luckily this is not something I'm concerned about, but if it would bother you, I'd recommend either inspecting the yarn in person before buying or being consistent about pulling the white bits out as you encounter them.

I used the cable chart from the Gedifra pattern flipped upside-down to knit top-down in the round, but I made up the rest of the sweater as I went along, adding 2x2 rib to the cuffs and bottom. I had some excitement at first because I didn't immediately realize I needed to flip the symbols for the different cable patterns (I had scanned the chart and flipped it upside-down and backwards, which turned out to be a little too much flipping). I was essentially knitting the cables inside out (see below for what that looks like - kind of cool, but not quite what I was going for). After I corrected this situation, the going was much smoother.

Bug tried to help me with blocking:



(If you were wondering, the T-pins were used here purely as anti-cat devices; they do keep the kitties from laying on my drying sweater, but the little beasts still think it's fun to walk through the forest of pins whenever they pass by.)

Here are some close-ups of the cables:





The cables look pretty cool inside-out, too:



And, for good measure, here are a couple more shots: