A Design of One's Own

This knit begins with a preface about a Christmas gift. My husband got me these...

Yeah. I know. He's pretty great.

Before Christmas I had purchased a pile of Quince and Co. Osprey (in the Sorbet colorway in case anyone is wondering) to make my daughter a sweater. I even had a pattern picked out but when I swatched... it just wasn't working. I knew I wanted some type of cable going down the front but that I wanted the rest to be simple. I kept toying with the idea of picking up Ann Budd's The Knitter's Handy Book of Top Down Sweater Patterns* and my husband kept dissuading me. Of course the reason for this was that he had already purchased it.

Almost immediately Christmas morning I began perusing and planning and swatching. I decided on the clustered braid cable from Barbara Walker's Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns (pg. 186 in my edition) and away I went.

Here is the result.

Chloe's Cables

I'm really, really pleased with how it came out. Next time I would maybe start with a wider neck opening which I believe you can do by casting on more stitches and doing fewer raglan increases. That makes sense, right? I think?

Also, I love, love, love the definition of the cable in this yarn.

Once I finished I pretty much wanted to design and cast on about a million little sweaters. I always forget how quick knits are for kids.

*If you even think you might like to make a sweater I would recommend you to buy. this. book. It has all the numbers you need to build your own top down sweater pattern, a few patterns in each style (raglan, yoke, etc) to demonstrate the technique, and all sorts of handy little tips that make you slap your forehead for not thinking of that yourself.