Cosy cables

So it seems my last post was quite possibly the most boring post imaginable. Let’s go back to knitting. In fact, let’s go back to around this time last year when my sister half-jokingly asked me to make her a new hat. I had only just learnt to knit at that point, and already had a crochet project on the go (and it still is, though there’s perhaps less of the ‘go’ about it) so didn’t want to take anything else on. Fast forward to this autumn, just as the weather started getting colder and I suddenly recalled my sister’s request.

By the time I spoke to her about it, she’d actually already bought herself a new hat, but now wanted a scarf/cowl/snood to go with it. We both trawled Ravelry for suitable patterns, but finding nothing that quite fitted the bill, she brought me the hat instead and I took inspiration from that.

Having already tackled cables for Hermes’ scarf, this looked fairly straightforward, so I took note of the pattern repeat, and guesstimated a rough measurement of how long it would need to be, and started from there. My sister had chosen a ball of James C Brett Marble Chunky, so I had 200g to play with.

I cast on 264 stitches in the round, and began with a section of 2×2 ribbing. The cabling section had an 11 stitch repeat; K3, P1, Cable across 6 Knit stitches, P1. I crossed the cables every 4th row (more or less – it’s easier to lose track when working in the round rather than back and forth). I then finished off with another section of 2×2 ribbing.

Mostly it was very plain sailing, but I encountered a bit of brain mush in the middle of the cabling section and had to frog a couple of times which was very frustrating. After that I stuck in a lifeline every few rows which was most certainly wise.

I had calculated that I would use 50g for the first ribbing section, 100g for the cables and 50g for the second section of ribbing, intending to use the entire ball if possible. I actually ended up with a fair amount left over, as I should have done one more repeat of the cables before starting the ribbing again, but I was unsure at the time whether I would have enough for that. Ah well. My only other regret was that, as with Pumpkin’s socks, I should have gone down a needle size for the ribbing as it’s a bit too loose in comparison with the cables. Unfortunately that means it turns out at the edges and sits a bit funny when being worn, but I’ll give it to my sister and see whats she thinks of it anyway before I start frogging the whole thing! Maybe next time I’ll remember.

Now my hooks are back out of hibernation and I’ve just got a couple more Christmas decorations to crochet to make it into parcels in time for tomorrow’s last posting date!

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