The weather may be grey but this garment is designed to give your mood a boost; it’s a glass half full type of knit. For a start, you won’t be cold in a sweater with this much deep textured loveliness. Secondly all the cable motifs have been specially designed to reach for the sky, twining onwards and upwards! Hey, maybe to look on the bright side, the weather won’t be grey at all and you just need this to keep off the sea breezes as you stroll by the ocean at sundown.

This is a longish cardigan with similarly generous length sleeves that can be worn slouchy to the knuckles or turned back with a cuff. It can be worn open or buttoned and is designed for wearing with no or just a bit of ease of the chest. The arms have a bit more ease to allow for layering.

Construction
The body of the cardigan is knit seamlessly flat in one piece. Sleeves are knit in the round and joined to the body as live stitches. The sleeves and body are then worked together flat to shape the raglan yoke. Underarm stitches are grafted together. Front bands are picked up and knit on.

Skills
This pattern does offer a degree of challenge because there is quite a lot going on at the same time. Skills include: cables, twisted stitches, slipped stitches, picking up stitches, grafting (only for underarms), reducing in pattern (there is some personal decision making in this - advice notes are provided), circular knitting. Very small amount of maths to calculate your own perfect button hole spacing (worked example provided).

Notions
I used a circular needle with a long cable for this one because of the number of stitches on the needle. You will also need circular needles or DPNs for the sleeves. Stitch markers are useful to mark fronts and backs and for the raglan decreases.Cable needle.

Yarn choices
I chose the studio donegal aran, a heathery, tweedy yarn that gives a really subtle and soft effect to the cables. This is also going to look fabulous in solid yarns that will make the cables sing out (see the beautiful crisp example by SarahPink in Valley Yarns Amherst). I can see this looking great in any light or bright shades - it would, for example zing in grass or mint greens, red-oranges and golds, purples, magentas, cherry reds and teal or sky blues (this is not an exhaustive list!). Neutrals such creams, beiges and light grey and soft pinks are of course classic choices for cables and in these shades the heathery/tweedy look will particularly lovely. I would be cautious about dark shades as the cables won’t show to best advantage. Look for a yarn with good stitch definition, whatever you choose. The beautiful green/blue example is in Peace Fleece.

Sizing
The cardigan is shown modelled in my sample at 0 ease on the chest and about 10cm/4in negative ease at the widest point of the hip. Choose a size within approx 2 inches of your actual chest size for a similar fit. Bear in mind that, although the ribbing at the bottom will give some extra ease over the first few inches, the cardigan is straight from hip to chest. If you are much wider at the hip than chest you can either choose a size with more ease, cast on with larger needles and then switch down to smaller ones at the waist, or simply opt to button the cardigan at the top only.

Approx finished garment sizes:

XS – 81cm/32 in
S – 96 cm/36 ¾ in
M – 106cm/41 ¾ in
L - 116cm/45 ¾ in
XL – 129cm/50 ¾ in
XXL -141cm/ 55 ½ in

Pattern contains
Full charted and written instructions
links to tutorials for joining the sleeves, grafting, suggested cast on method and button hole methods.
full schematic and additional information on gauge over the main cable panel