Project One: green alpaca cabled cardigan sweater

It all began innocently enough, sitting on a sunny, grassy slope at a music festival last summer, flipping through Vogue Knitting (my pal's, Fall 2005). Just minding my own business, flippy, flippy, when all of a sudden, on page 75, I saw the most excellent short green cabled cardigan sweater with wood buttons. The decision to (re)learn to knit came immediately.

I took action. I asked my dear and talented friend for an afternoon of instruction. That turned out to be fairly successful, although you remember, don't you? The my-fingers-won't-do-that moments? Like trying to eat with chopsticks the first time you tried. My hand-eye coordination was not what it ought to have been that day, but Friend was gracious and oh-so-patient, and so began the knitting of my sweater (on Friend's borrowed needles).

But I leapfrogged over the yarn shop experience! Now, I admit to a fair bit of naivete, and it held true while yarn shopping. Apparently, the only yarn satisfactory for my project was $10/ball alpaca wool. Mind you, it has knit up beautifully, I love the sweater, it'll be a favorite for years to come, yada yada yada, but I've since realized/discovered the joys of $3/skein yarn, too. First shopping experience. I was young.

I changed the cables to something chunkier, partly because I liked them, but mostly because, even though I tried valiantly, I just C O U L D N O T figure out the pattern map for the ones shown. I'm pretty experienced with cables now, and if I tried this again I'm confident I could do these cables just following the picture and not the legend, but...lesson learned.

So here it is, for your viewing (and my wearing) pleasure. Hope you enjoy.