VK Cable Cardigan Mods

Ahhh, the lovely VK Cable Cardigan. First it was the large cable that I modified because I thought it looked funny. Now it's the sleeves which have conflicting instructions. But, neither was a big deal--I just need to stay alert and be prepared to make mods where necessary.

Here are some suggested corrections and tips for those who are interested in knitting this sweater:

• Gauge: The gauge in the pattern is confusing because for Chart E, you check the gauge over a part of the pattern that decreases. This didn't make any sense to me, so I swatched by repeating rows 23-26 of Chart E.


• It is very important to measure your gauge after wet blocking your swatch. It explicitly says to wet block in the instructions, and now I wish I had.


• Chart E: Row 26 should be the same as Row 25.


• 10-st LPC: Sl 4 sts to cn and hold to the front, k4, p2; k4 from the cn. To me, this cable looks better than the 10-st LPC in the pattern. But, that's just me. You may want to swatch the large cables in Chart C to see what you prefer.


• Size small sleeves: the sleeves will be too long if you knit 128 rows before the cap shaping, assuming that you knit to the pattern gauge. Suggestion: knit the first 42 rows of the sleeve pattern as instructed, then measure the length of the work. The sleeve length before the cap shaping is 18 inches, so distribute the 5+5 rows of increases accordingly in the remaining length. I ended up increasing every 6th row, then every 4th row.


• If you decide to work the fronts & back as one piece, figure out where the buttonholes will be before you begin.

Here's the body--excuse the skewed perspective, I couldn't position the camera directly over the sweater without blocking the light. Overall, the sweater is larger than the dimensions in the schematic. That's the result of not wet blocking my swatch. On the bright side, I wanted something in between a small and a medium, so I think this is going to work out for me.


Here are the sleeves in progress. Notice the bell shape--I hope I don't hate it.


And here's a close-up of a sleeve. Cables galore!


Yarn: Gjestal Ren Ny Ull Superwash Sport , Color = Nordic Blue
Purchased: 16 skeins
Needles: Denise US#9
Pattern: #19 Cabled Cardigan
Vogue Knitting, Spring/Summer 2004
Size: Small