Introducing My Husband

This is my husband. He's a very good husband, as husbands go. Even when other women want to pet and fondle him (and they do! Oh, do they! You should have seen the heavy petting at the Harlot's booksigning!) he remains Mine, All Mine. He's very nice to touch -- hence the hordes of women wanting to stroke him. He's an extrafine merino and you know what that means. Very soft, almost feels like cotton, but retains some of the elasticity and hand of wool.

When I knit the gauge swatch on this a few weeks ago, I was so amazed by the hand and feel that I took it to my SnB and went into paroxysms of ecstasy right there in the old coffee shop. Total yarngasm. I confessed a desire to have this yarn's babies, and now all my SnB buddies call the yarn my husband. They also keep acting like a buncha husband-craving hussies, but that's a whole other story.

I bought this yarn at The Fold, which is a very holy and mystical place, and also very dangerous. Do Not, under any circumstances, take credit cards with you to The Fold. The Fold has been sanctified to the worship of extremely gorgeous and elite natural fibers. When plastic crosses the threshold of a place like that, the plastic is cursed to its limits. Sometimes, in rare cases, this curse has been known to exceed the plastic limits.

Ask me how I know.

Don't mess with The Fold's supermojo is all I'm saying. Next time, I'm taking cash. Lots and lots of cash, because I'm only human after all. But still. Cash.

Anyway. Silver Creek Yarns sportweight merino, color Marine. The top picture probably comes closest to representing the true depth of color. That's the cardigan back of a fitted cardigan. The cables angle in at the waistline by decreasing the reverse stockinette field between each cable, then increasing again above the waistline. This picture shows the upper part of the waist with some of the above-the-waist increasing.

The hardest part of this project so far has been related to this waist shaping. There is a single purl stitch separating the columns of cables at the narrowed waist. That single purl stitch was distorting like crazy at first. I've never had ladders in anything before, but my first go on this almost looked like a cabled clapotis. Big honking holes.

I tried ptbl and other standard fixes, but nothing gave me the result I wanted. I ended up ripping back and re-knitting and paying very, very close attention to the way that single purl stitch seated itself on the needles so that it would not distort. It was slow and tedious, but it seemed to work. I'm not 100% satisfied, but it passes the prancing pony test.

Just to complete the picture, here's a shot of the below-the-waist shaping on those cables. It's a very simple cable with a 12-row repeat, cable crossings on row 3 and 7. I like the hourglass shape that the irregular crosses give to the cable and I think it complements the shaping of the actual cardigan. (I hope! Still lots of knitting left on this one.)