Like most knitters, I started out with small projects: hats, scarves, and so on. But I could only scroll past sweaters on Ravelry for so long before giving in! A while back, I started working on Thomas Connor’s An Eskevien pattern. It is wonderful. An oversized sweater in worsted weight on 14-inch-long needles is a very different experience from tiny detailed handwarmers! Fortunately, cables are fun either way.
Yes, that is literally an entire pound of acrylic yarn. This cardigan is going to use two of these skeins. I’ve never knitted anything this big before! Soon it was obvious that this project was too big to carry with me. Since I cast on the cardigan before finishing my simpler knits, this became the one I left at home. I go back to it between small projects and when I need a break from tiny gauges. I’ve found that this also helps with the sheer scale of this cardigan. If I tried to knit this whole thing in one go, I would probably get sick of it. But as a side project, it’s wonderful! Returning to the simple cream color and familiar cables is relaxing, which is exactly the feeling I’d hoped to associate with my first big cozy cardigan.
As I’ve written before, I adore cable-knitting, especially when the pattern is charted out well. This pattern certainly qualifies! Me being me, I wrote out each section’s instructions on graph paper alongside drawing out the corresponding charts for easier reference than paging back and forth in the PDF. Much more convenient than trying to read a long pattern on a little phone screen.
So far, the back section (pictured below) and the left front side are complete, and I am working on the right side as I type. Next I’ll knit up the sleeves. Then I’ll have the adventure of learning how to seam pieces together!
My cardigan has been a work in progress for a while, and I probably won’t be finishing it soon. But that’s okay; winter is months away.
—Em