I have come to a conclusion: I will not knit jumpers for other people. It takes too long and is too much of a risk; the last two jumpers I knit, both for myself, had to be frogged because even though they knit exactly according to plan, neither of them suited me at all. That’s one pattern I designed myself (the jumper of dooooom) and one designed by someone else and knit with no mods (Cherie Amour).
But I’m making another attempt at knitting one for myself, albeit a cardigan rather than a jumper. My previous cardigan – one of the very first things I knit, and also one of the very first things I designed – is one of my favourite garments, and always gets compliments. In fairness, I should say that the cardigan itself is very simple: oversized raglan with moss stitch edges, and it’s the yarn – Colinette One Zero in semi-solid purple – that deserves the compliments, but anyway, it’s a garment that I love.
The new cardigan is much more complicated. It’s the spiritual, as well as physical, successor to the jumper of doooom: made with the same purple merino DK, and with cable panels on large expanses of stocking stitch.
Over Christmas I did some planning and setup work on the cardigan – I designed the cable pattern, swatched, made some calculations and then set off. The beginning wasn’t even in the merino, but in Curious Yarns’ purple variegated DK silk, which is too variegated for me in large quantities, but is absolutely gorgeous and feels lovely as a facing. I’ve finished the collar – silk on the inside, merino on the outside – and made a start on the shoulders, with four beginnings of cables, two of which will work their way down the sleeves, and the other two down the front edges. I’m knitting it with my lovely new Harmony needles and I’m having to constantly steer my knitting brain away from it and towards other things (like the clapotis which I was scared I’d be knitting forever, and the Shadow and Ghost socks).
The cables don’t really show up very well in the photos, but I’m very happy with how it looks in the flesh 