My Cable Knit Sweater

Winter is always the knitting season for me. As soon as the weather starts getting colder, I get the itch to pick up a knitting project. Although I haven't shared that many projects on the blog, I actually very much enjoy knitting. It's one of the most soothing activities I know. Some of my proudest projects have been knitted. On top of the list is a lace knit cardigan with beads I knitted for my Mom a few years ago, and an Icelandic sweater dress I made for myself. 

As with all crafts, some years are more productive than others. This winter has seen a new wave of knitting for me. The projects are not many, but they are big. First, the scrap yarn throw blanket. And now, a cable knit sweater. 

I usually make my own patterns for knitting since the few times I've followed a pattern resulted in disastrous failures. I don't know what I do wrong, but even after checking for gauge, all my projects turn out at least 3 sizes too big. My last very painful disaster was the sweater I knit for Rein last Christmas, that I ended up ruining trying to make it wearable, and that I wasted a lot of hours to make. Sigh..

That's the thing about knitting though, a project like a sweater has a lot of room for error, which can lead to moments of utter frustration. This one also had a couple of those. I tried to do a high-low hem ribbing, and mostly succeeded, although I should have started with more cast-ons, and then decreasing the number with the short rows (if that makes any sense to anyone else but me). That was a valuable lesson for me as I'd never done a high-low hem before on a sweater (or anything else for that matter). Also, I counted the stitches wrong when joining the sleeves, so I ended up having to unravel many rows of knitting. Not a fun moment.

I love seed stitch! Seriously, I use it in most of my projects. It's one of those easy stitches that looks very sophisticated. So, the body is in seed stitch apart from the cabled front part, and the sleeves are regular knit. I thought it would be a nice contrast between those two with the raglan sleeves. By the way, it was my first attempt at a self-drafted raglan sleeve. Success! 

A little word about the yarn I used as well. My Grandma gave me this yarn for Christmas too many years ago. I had a hard time deciding what to knit with it, and so it just sat in my yarn pile. Now, when I was back in Estonia for the holidays, I thought it'd be the perfect time to start this project. It took me about a month to finish this. Would have gone a lot faster, but I usually knit only when I'm watching a series or film in the evenings. We should watch more of those, I guess.

All in all, I'm super happy with my sweater. I had a couple of hiccups along the way, but that's a part of the process. Initially, I'd hope to share this pattern with you, but it came out much more difficult, and the work that would go into making this into an easy-to-follow pattern with different sizing would just be too much at this point. But, you can browse other knit projects I've made for some other ideas.

A little update! The yarn i used is Bergere de France Eclair (74% acrylic, 14% mohair, 9% worsted wool, 3% lurex). The color is Taffetas, which I can't seem to find anywhere for sale. There are other colors available, though. Like hot pink, deep purple, plum, beige, white, and lime green on Amazon, and this site also has a lot of variety, including the light pink I used for a hat I'm wearing here.

I'm already sketching out a new spring sweater design. I hope to make something simple, so I could share the pattern with you as well.

Have you knit anything recently? Is knitting a seasonal craft for you as well, or are you a year-round knitter?