The Line by Ann Weaver

The Line

Knitting
November 2012
Worsted (9 wpi) ?
18 stitches and 24 rows = 4 inches
in Stockinette stitch
US 8 - 5.0 mm
1450 - 2660 yards (1326 - 2432 m)
32 (36, 40, 44, 48, 52)-inch bust
English
This pattern is available for $7.00 USD
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All men live enveloped in whale-lines. All are born with halters round their necks; but it is only when caught in the swift, sudden turn of death, that mortals realize the silent, subtile, ever-present perils of life.
Melville, Moby-Dick, “The Line”

You can purchase kits of the yarn for this pattern, which was dyed especially for this cardigan, from Dragonfly Fibers here.

The whale-line’s path through the boat is complex and treacherous for the whalers. When a whale has been harpooned, the line zips around them with the potential to sever any limb it entangles. Melville calls it the “magical, sometimes horrible, whale-line.” In this cardigan, I sought to capture the twists of the line in the colors of both hemp and Manilla.