cabled delights for the cold front

I rarely buy new clothes anymore, but last weekend I let myself wander around the stores on Newbury Street, Boston's premiere shopping street, and was surprised to find inspiration. Cables, it seems, along with chunky sweaters, are very much IN this season. Madewell, J Crew and Zara all had at least a couple of chunky cabled sweaters on their racks. Now, I'm not allowed to buy any new sweaters, and I'm not allowed to buy any new yarn, we all know that, so... as soon as I got home I rummaged through my stash of yarn and patterns and struck gold! I get to have a new cabled sweater this season after all.

Almost a year ago, I got my hands on Cirilia Rose's Vashon pattern (it's in Berroco book 302). I fell for this sweater on sight, but somehow never got around to making it, then I forgot about it. I love the 1950s styling with the short waist and high neckline, but I know that those style elements are not going to work so well for me. Another pattern that I drool over, also from the Berroco design stable, is Norah Gaughan's Beatnik (free in Knitty deep fall 2010). Beatnik is much more of a nod to 1960s mod style, with the boat neck and 3/4 sleeves. It's right up my alley, you might say. Alas, Beatnik is another pattern that I bought the yarn for and was dead set on making until I let it sit for too long, and, you guessed it, forgot about completely. However, with my new found cable obsession, it dawned on that I should take the bits I love from both patterns and make my own Frankenstein sweater, and so idea for the Vashnik was born!

Indeed, it's time for some major mods: I'm following the Vashon cable charts, but making the sweater to the size specifications of Beatnik, with a boatneck and moss stitch 3/4 sleeves. Like the original Vashon, I'm using a bulky weight yarn, Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Chunky in silver, which is lovely and soft and has pretty nice stitch definition. I wonder how fuzzy it will get with wear? Here is a progress pic, I'm almost done with the back panel!

It really is a fun, quick knit. So far I've only made minor modifications, like increasing the body length, and making an in-between size, but I'm working on the major mods needed for the boatneck. It's fun! I plan to write up all the modifications properly once the sweater is finished, in case anyone else wants a Vashnik too!

In other news, I signed up for a colour photography class (analogue) that I'm really excited about! I'm going to go pick up some camera equipment later today. In fact, I'm going to be picking up my dream 35mm SLR kit: Olympus OM-1N in black, 28mm f2, 50mm f1.4 and 90mm f2.5 macro. Yummy. Expect to see some more of my proper photography making it's way into the blog over the next few months.

Hope you're all having a great weekend!