According to the pattern PDF, I’m at about 68% progress!
The pattern is split into sections labelled A through G, and I’ve just started chart F.
At this point, there’s an option to switch to a larger needle size, and I did choose to do that. I had been mildly worried about whether there would be a lot of leftover yarn, so this would be a good way to make use of more. Also, the gradient from light to dark blue happens over the whole yarn, so using more of it would show off more of that gradient as the shawl would end on a darker shade.
Speaking of gradients… the gradient FINALLY started showing up, which you can (kinda) see in the picture.
It looks like the color transition is going to come out pretty well 😊
That’s all for now — Will report back later with updates!
Since my last post about the Wild Swan Shawl, I’ve made a LOT of progress.
I’m about halfway done with it! (It definitely took some undoing and redoing of rows)
Here are some pictures of the progress along the way:
It’s definitely satisfying to see those feather🪶 / leaf🍃 patterns appear after you get past those rows!
The color gradient switching to dark blue hasn’t kicked in yet, but soon!
Some Interesting Stitches
Lace patterns always have some interesting stitch combinations to produce those holey patterns. At the beginning of the PDF for this pattern, there’s a fantastic key explaining some of the stitch notations. Luckily they weren’t too crazy, as they were just extensions of common stitches, but they did take some learning.
Increases and Decreases
Most of these were increases and decreases intended to produce different slants or other visual effects. Lately I’ve been paying more attention to why certain stitches are chosen in a pattern, and specifically I notice the left- vs. right-slanting incs/decs more, now that I’m paying attention.
Here are (most of) the increases/decreases appearing in the pattern:
Notation
Explanation
Counting Effect
Visual Effect
yo
Yarn-over leading into next stitch
Increase 1 st
Add a new st, with a hole appearing under it
co
Backwards loop cast-on
Increase 1 st
Similar to yo, but easier to add many new sts consecutively
kyok
k, yo, k into next st
Increase 2 sts
Increases by 2 sts in a fan-like triangle radiating from previous st. Also has a hole appearing in the middle of the fan: \o/
k2tog
Knit 2 sts together
Decrease 1 st
Right-leaning decrease
skp(sso)
Slip 1 knitwise, knit, pass slipped st over knit st
Decrease 1 st
Left-leaning decrease
ssk (not used in pattern)
Slip 2 knitwise (one at a time), then use left needle to knit 2 slipped sts together
Decrease 1 st
Same as skp(sso), but easier for some people
k3tog
Knit 3 sts together
Decrease 2 sts
Very right-leaning decrease
sssk
Slip 3 knitwise (one at a time), then use left needle to knit 3 slipped sts together
Decrease 2 sts
Very left-leaning decrease
sk2p
Slip 1 knitwise, k2tog, pass slipped st over
Decrease 2 sts
Double central decrease /|\
dcd (?)
Slip 2 knitwise, k1, pass 2 slipped sts over
Decrease 2 sts
Double central decrease /|\
The specific decreases matter a lot to make the feather patterns turn out correctly. For example, the outer edges of the feathers have to “bend” inwards, like so: /~~~\. After you do a bit of the pattern, you get a hang for when certain sts are meant to be used. Since I was already familiar with the basic k2tog and ssk decreases, it wasn’t too difficult to pick up the 3-to-1 decreases, which just involve more sts being slipped and knit together.
Backwards Loop Cast-On
Although I’d done this st before, I did have to look it up again online to get the hang of it 🤷
Once you figure out the motion to loop the yarn with the thumb and create a new stitch, it goes really quickly.
ONE WARNING:
When you work one of these stitches while passing on the next row, be really sure that you’re counting stitches correctly, because unworking one of these is really difficult. The stitch is usually tight to the needle, so it’s hard to wedge the needle into it to undo it if you make a mistake. Trust me, I had to undo a couple of rows after counting wrong, and it cost me a couple extra days of effort to fix 😭
Feather Pattern Pictures
Here are a few more pictures showing some of the patterns more closely:
Just one more half left to complete… Wish me luck!
Scalloped edges with a shell-type pattern, making it look something like bat wings
I really enjoyed that pattern and still count it as one of my best outputs (even though it wasn’t perfect).
This Pattern
For this pattern (as with everything else I pick up), I was looking for some new challenge.
Filtering through some of the patterns on Ravelry, I ended up wanting some of the following:
Large crescent- or triangle-shape, rather than entirely circular
Visually including some pictorial elements (leaf or feather shapes, etc.)
Not overly repetitive
Higher difficulty
I landed on the Wild Swan Shawl because it satisfied these needs!
Looking at the pattern PDF, you can see that it’s almost entirely written up using charts, and this makes sense considering the very pictorial nature of the pattern that wouldn’t be capturable with words alone.
I’ve used charts before, but not to this level, so I thought this would be another good challenge.
Choosing the Yarn
Typically, I’m not very adventurous in terms of yarn colors. For the most part, I use solid-color yarns and don’t prefer gradients, speckles, etc. However, this pattern seems to lend itself well to gradients, as it is knit from the center outwards. I asked around my knitting group for gradient yarns, and someone recommended looking at the yarn cakes from Hobbii to find good gradients.
In addition to the back piece, I’ve now completed the front piece!
Initially, I was working 4 rows per day, which was about 1/2 of an inch per day, but that felt too slow, so I doubled the pace!
I had one mishap in the middle panel where the yarn broke and unraveled a bit, but I managed to salvage it and tie it up before any serious damage happened. Luckily it affected one of the behind cables in a cable-cross, so the issue is obscured a bit by the front cable of the pair.
Hopefully no more unraveling happens in the future though 🤞
In my last post, I’d started off the back piece of the sweater with a twisted rib, ending with increases interspersed throughout the final WS row of the ribbing.
Now we’re getting into the fun part! ~~> Those delicious CABLE panels 🧶
Here’s where I’m at so far:
My tension at the cabled sections was initially unstable, but it evened out once the pattern was established.
The cables are looking pretty clean, if I do say so myself!
I’m only about a third of the way through this stage of the pattern. Since the row-counts for the 3 cabled sections are 4, 8, and 18, the panels do match up nicely on multiples of 4, even though the 18 messes that up. I’ve just been keeping track of rows in a notebook so I don’t get mixed up. Plus I’ll definitely want to have the same row-count for the front piece, so good I’m keeping track.
Luckily it has been easy to go into auto-pilot once the pattern for the cable panels was established. This portion of the sweater continues like this until the point where the raglan sleeves would be joined in. After that, the pattern is continued, but worked with decreases at the sides for the sleeves.
Minor Cable Issues
I’ve noticed a few places where the cables look a little bit messy.
The boundary K st of a cable will sometimes be loose because of the P st before or after it:
This seems to mostly happen at the outermost st of a cabled panel, rather than the internal ones.
I remembered reading about a tip for this specific situation in this book by Judith Durant:
She suggested two possible fixes:
Use a bit more tension on those boundary sts, to counter the loosening between K/P sts
Purl the subsequent P st tbl to twist it and add some tightness
I’m trying out the second option since it has worked for me in the past, and it’s a more concrete fix than adjusting tension, which can be wishy-washy.
I typically don’t prefer to make tension changes when I’m midway through a pattern, but I don’t think anyone (except for me) will really notice such a small change, especially after washing and blocking everything out.
At least it’ll be a good test!
I’ll figure out whether that improves the appearance of the cables and reduces looseness.
First up is the back piece section of the sweater, so let me record some notes on my progress here.
Twisted Rib
The section starts with a simple twisted rib (w/ the smaller needles) for the bottom boundary of the sweater:
This stitch pattern is super easy as it’s just like the normal 1×1 ribbing, done by alternating between K (knit) and P (purl) for RS (right side). The “twisted” part comes from working the K’s tbl (through the back loop), forcing those stitches to twist, making the stitches tighter and the resultant ribbing lines thinner as well. Then on the way back on WS (wrong side), just K the K’s and P the P’s as usual, but working the P’s tbl.
The stitch pattern is the following 2 rows alternated (odd number of sts):
Row 1 (RS): *k1 tbl, p1, rep from * to last st. k1 tbl
Row 2 (WS): *p1 tbl, k1, rep from * to last st. p1 tbl
Sadly, ribbing always reminds me of my sad life circumstance as a western throwing knitter because of all the extra hand motions just to switch the yarn between front and back 😞.
Last Row Increase
On the last row of the twisted ribbing, the pattern calls for an evenly spaced increase of 29 sts interspersed among the existing 115 sts. Then we switch to the larger needles for the rest of the piece.
I’ve done plenty of increases before, but I know that the specific increase that I choose might leave eyelets or holes which would look bad on the final product. So I took the opportunity to sit down and look into different kinds of increases and learn the pros and cons for each.
I read through this guide from Nimble Needles, and I would HIGHLY recommend that anyone else refer to this page to learn about different kinds of increases.
Here’s what the piece looked like after knitting a bit past the increase row:
Look between the ribbing and the cable section… the increase is SO INVISIBLE 🤩
The increase that I went with was a KLL (knit left loop) increase to make it as invisible as possible. Check this tutorial from the previous site for a tutorial. This was definitely better than increasing by knitting the same stitch twice, using a yarn-over, picking up the strand in-between, or casting on mid-row. Those would all leave some noticeable amount of hole or gap.
What’s Next?
Next up is the main section of the back piece, which is pretty much just a ton of cables (my favorite!!)
Today, I announce the first project for my blog: an Aran Sweater!
(Taken from the pattern page on Ravelry)
It has definitely been some time since I dedicated myself to a large personal project! I’ve worked on some smaller items recently, but none required all that much thought, time, or yarn. And I’ve especially not made anything lately just for myself. Finally I can stop flaking out of my knitting group meet-ups and have a consistent WIP (work in progress) to bring to the party 😋
The last large project of mine that I was really proud of would probably be this fancy cable-knit cardigan:
That’s a story/post for another time! 😉
I decided on an Aran sweater for a few reasons:
CABLES… SO MANY CABLES (!!!) – my favorite, of course 😊
The (not-so-)subliminal messages were piling up. I’ve been seeing them all over the place, both IRL and in media (e.g. Chris Evans in Knives Out). So I finally looked into what all these fashionable people were wearing and decided that I must make it mine!!
This design includes raglan-style sleeves, which I haven’t done yet
Perhaps I can learn from this pattern and eventually design my own complicated cable sweater
I could even sell those eventually 💵💁♂️💵
My cardigan is getting lonely in the closet and needs another cabley buddy
The central “honeycomb” pattern formed by the interwoven 8-strand cable is mostly what got me. I did something similar on a sweater for my dog (another future post!!) and really enjoyed how that one turned out. In my mind, I wouldn’t label this as a “honeycomb” per se, but I suppose the term just refers to any cable pattern forming a lattice similar to that of a honeycomb.
Is this a “honeycomb”? I guess so
I had also looked at a few other places that people had suggested to me:
A website with a bunch of free vintage Aran patterns that seem to be from old knitting mags (?)
Decided against these because the scanned pages were a bit fuzzy, and I didn’t want to get stuck on an unreadable part or an instruction/notation that wasn’t fully explained
I considered colors other than the classic Aran off-white, but honestly I think the off-white looks best. Any darker shade like olive or navy, or even lighter versions of those, might end up making the cables’ complexity visually less noticeable. Plus, it’s plain enough that it wouldn’t constrain the rest of a potential outfit to a particular color scheme.
While looking around at other Ravelry users’ projects of this pattern, I came across these:
These both look pretty good, but I’m not feeling adventurous enough to mess with the suggested yarn 🙃. I also don’t know anything about hemp yarn, so no clue if that’s a good sweater material. (Note to self: Look into hemp yarn).
Smaller needles (US 6) for the ribbing, and larger (US 8) for everything else.
This product deserves a whole review post of its own (someday…).
Having been burned by badly-manufactured and flimsy interchangeable circulars in the past, I really cannot say enough about how much I love this one from Knit Picks.
Gauge and Sizing
At the moment, my chest size is around 37″, which would lead me to following the XS/S instructions. However, since I’m currently strength-training and weight-lifting to gain weight (fine fine, get angry at me , I don’t care 😒), I decided that the instructions for size M would make more sense.
Now, I’m not usually the type to fuss over gauge, but in this case I figure it’s worth it to avoid finding out later that the sizing was all wrong from the start. The pattern specifies: 19 sts by 25 rows = 4″.
Gauge looks good! – No adjustments needed, luckily.
To Be Continued…
I’ll be posting progress updates as I work through the project!
You can follow along with the project using the tags on the post!
Mihir the Cable Guy 