So, hey, I’ve knitted another sweater (!). I love my shawlettes and shawls, but I do want to knit more sweaters. (Or crochet them. Really not picky about this point.) As you can tell from the name of the pattern, the Cables & Twists Cardigan is a sweater you knit for the texture, not for the colorwork.
I picked up a few Mari Dembrow patterns back in the “aughts.” (Sheesh, that was years ago. How the century flies when you’re not paying attention.) This is the first one I committed to making. I’d had my eye on KnitPicks’ Blossom Heather colorway for a while, had finally bought a sweater-quantity in Wool of the Andes Worsted during a sale in 2019, and started looking for a good pattern to pair it with. Eventually my brain linked the two.
Generally, I enjoyed knitting this. It’s a bottom-up sweater in the body, and then you sew the shoulder seams together, pick up the sleeves at the armholes, and knit back down to the cuffs. You end up knitting the large braided cables in both directions. Those large cables both add visual interest to the plain stockinette areas of the sweater and knitting interest: there’s something there to break up the monotony of both stockinette stitch and the K1 P1 ribbing. Every size has large and small braided cables and twists, but the numbers of the small cables and twists vary depending on what size you’re knitting.
Wait—let me amend the previous paragraph. Generally, yes, I enjoyed knitting this sweater, except for the sleeves. For whatever reason, I’m better at estimating the length of cuff-up sleeves than top-down ones. I ended up knitting the right sleeve 3½ times before I got the length right: too long, too short, too long. (The half-time was discovering I screwed up the cable so far back that frogging what I’d knitted up to that point was going to be faster than trying to fix just the cable). I’m glad I kept at it though, because the sleeves are just the right length for me now—this almost never happens with store-bought clothing—and the sweater is totally comfortable to wear, and looks “right.” I suppose I’m getting better at top-down sleeves: back when I knitted the Circumnavigated Cardigan, I knitted its first sleeve seven times before getting it right. 🙄 Also, I appreciate a good tight gauge when wearing a sweater, but knitting worsted-weight yarn on size 2 (2.75 mm) and size 5 (3.75 mm) needles is tiring.
If I were to knit this again, I’d want to reconsider how the plain stockinette section fits. The heavily-cabled sections fit nicely, but the plain areas are kind of baggy, which is hard to see when it’s modeled on a hanger. Yet decreasing around the waist, unless carefully planned, could pull the large braided cables to one side or another, which wouldn’t look as attractive. Not that I have to worry about that in the foreseeable future because there are too many other patterns I want to knit first. For now, though, I’m basking in the warm glow of knitting triumph…and starting an afghan. Another big project—whee!
Cables & Twists Cardigan
Pattern: Cables & Twists Cardigan
Yarn: Knit Picks Wool of the Andes Worsted
Colorway: Blossom Heather
Needles: 2 (2.75 mm), 5 (3.75 mm)
Silver Threads 