Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Kalen Sweater


My cousin’s son Kalen will sleep through anything, is happy to be held by anyone, and is generally the most easy-going child I’ve ever met.  You know, precisely not like Willow.  But Kalen is Irish for warrior, so this cable-knit is for him, even if he is an entirely peaceful soul.



And anyway I had so much fun with this one.  It made me want to knit cables, cables all the time, cables in a much smaller gauge than this so there could be more cables!  Cables Cables Cables!

As you can see, it's a raglan knit in pieces and then sewn up.  I probably could have made it so it was all in one piece, but nobody likes bottom-up raglans because the sleeve join is such a pain, and top-down the cables would have braided in the wrong direction and that bothered me and I really wanted braided cables.  Plus, with so many cables the sweater is pretty heavy, and the seams give it a little more stability (that was the real reason, I swear.  The braided cables weren't that important to me.  Honestly).

This yarn, Hikoo Simpliworsted by Skacel, is a real find for kid knits.  I'd originally envisioned this sweater in a DK-weight cotton (I love cotton and cables.  I know they don't hang as well, and as you see I resisted the impulse, but I can't help it), but the Simpliworsted is pretty great.  It has some acrylic, but enough merino to keep it feeling like yarn instead of plastic, plus a little nylon, and it's just a nice, squishy yarn.  I used a US 10 needle, as the yarn calls for, expecting it to be too drapey for this sweater, but it wasn't at all. 

But that DK cotton cabled sweater is going to happen someday.  I swear.

3 comments:

Pam said...

I love this beauty. Are you going to offer the patern? I would be right there.

Congrats on a job well done.

Nikki Van De Car said...

Thank you! It's going to be part of the second book, so keep an eye out!

Marie said...

It's Gorgeous!!! Drop dead gorgeous. I find cables to be a bit fiddly for me, so I don't them much, but this has stirred a bit of inspiration...I may have to work with them again. Thank you!