Big Cables progress

I've finished the front of the "Knit Big or Go Home" sweater in the current issue of Knitwords and I'm really pleased with the results so far. The cables are a bit hard to see in this photograph because I am photographically challenged and cannot figure out how to turn off the flash on my digital camera. I did try to darken the contrast a bit, but I don't think that really helped. Just get your nose up close to the screen and squint, and you may start to see the cables going up the middle.

This is a nice, simple (visually, and in execution) design with nice vertical lines (alway a good thing). I think I found a mistake in the pattern though, which caused some frustration when I divided for the neck.

The pattern calls for dividing the two "cable strands" to each follow up the side of the neck. Each cable strand is made up of eight cable stitches and then one tuck rib that's latched up by hand. Of course, once you divide for the neck, you need to start decreasing in order to shape the neck. The pattern calls for a "9 to 8" decrease, meaning that you move the stitch on the 9th needle to the 8th needle. But if you do this, when you get to the shoulder and drop the 9th stitch in order to latch it up for the tuck rib, the tuck rib won't follow beside the cable.

I guess just trust me when I say that the only way to get that tuck rib to follow immediately beside the 8 cable stitches, and still achieve the neck shaping, is to leave those 8 cable stitches and 1 tuck rib stitch totally undisturbed, and do the decrease as "11 to 10", or the eleventh stitch from the neck edge onto the tenth. I can say that this is the voice of experience from ripping out the neck four times because I didn't listen to my own intuition.

The yarn, by the way, is some I have had lounging in my stash for awhile - 100% wool, royal blue, single ply, that's all I know. A little bit coarse off the cone, but it should soften up once it's blocked and even more when it's been "broken in".

Two sleeves to go on this one and then it's on to Jed the Hound's hockey sweater!