Shepherd and Shearer Step Four - Knitting Officially Begins Today!

Buoyed on by chatting with Fiona at the DKC and then her encouragement in the comments with a couple of (obviously) relevant tips from the Queen of Cables herself, I dove into working the set up rows of the first side.

Here's the thing though - if I wanted all cables to flow out of the 2x2 ribs, the ribs themselves -how they are arranged need to be a set up of sorts...

Planning this aspect, the math told me I needed to add 13 stitches that I would decrease away with k2togs in the actual set up row from my revised chart. That stitch count though meant extra inches of loosey goosey width around the bottom of the sweater. Not good. So I used a soft, long tail cast on for stretch on a smaller (4mm) needle and knit the waist band pretty firmly, working up the whole 2.5" depth of the ribbing I've chosen to anchor the design. (The guy's over 6' tall - he needs and can carry something pretty substantial) This allowed me to gauge how well the waist band would/could do its natural "thing" - pull in but also be able to stretch out.

Then I held my breath and measured and holy mackerel, it worked!

After that I moved up to 5mm straights (I prefer their firm stability over a wobbly thin circular cable when lots of counting is required) to work the vertically swatched cabled elements now having to follow one after the other in a sequence across with the width of the waist.

I knew the stitches between the elements and on either side of the cable panel were my concern at this point as was making sure I had edges that would work together when the sweater is assembled.

You won't believe what happened....that worked out too! So then it was off the crowded straight, onto a nice roomy circ. and before I knew it I was at the end of the first 6 row chart and able to just see clearly how those ribs flow!!!

(FYI The central orange marker denotes the location of the 2 purls that would be worked together to form the centremost stitch of the sweater front and central cable motif. The pink markers above that are either side of that now single purl stitch that became one stitch from two behind that first cable cross.

The two orange markers bracketing that central one, are the points at which I cheated by placing the centre point of each major side cable, two purl stitches apart rather than right together as the pattern is written, to facilitate the flow of the ribbing into those elements.

I successfully fought the urge after that to just plow on, instead, setting that piece aside and casting on to knit the second panel's 16 rows of ribbing. Next I'll do the first 6 row chart for that side while every thing's still fresh in my mind and then I'll be able to sit back, relax and enjoy multiple inches of delicious creamy, woolly cabling.

Once I get a bit of length established on the first panel I'll use it to do some measurements on My Beloved and sort out how the cables will work with and around the shaping for armholes and neck.

Thanks to Fiona for the encouragement and tips! Thanks to you for dropping by!