Purple Aran

The words "purple" and "Aran" don't seem to go together, but that's what's on my knitting needles now: a purple cotton cabled sweater, adapted (from a Bernat booklet) to be worked in the round. The yarn is definitely not traditional. It's a cotton, light worsted weight by my guesstimation, reclaimed from a Lane Bryant sweater that I bought at Gabe's for a dollar. It was only a dollar because the collar was already coming off, which for me was a bonus-it's already started to frog itself! If I work fast, it might be done for the Fayette County Fair. If not, maybe the Westmoreland county Fair.

One tip I learned from doing this sweater is that in order to make the cables line up correctly once the yoke is reached, you have to do a little math. I did the body first, and it took nine 12-row repeats plus the ribbing to reach 16.5 inches. Since the underarm length was to be 19 inches, I measured the 12-row repeat, added that to the measurement of the whole body and made up the difference in ribbing. Then when I joined the sleeves with the body, I was on the same row. This might not be important if you're working smaller cables that twist every fourth row or so, but this was a v-shaped cable that would have looked off-kilter. Although some knitting mavens suggest working the sleeves first, in order to make sure your gauge is correct, in this case, I suggest doing the body first. If you have a large row repeat, you might have to start some place other than row one on the sleeves in order to synchronize everything at the yoke.

So, Aran knitting tip number one: Plan ahead if you're working in the round to be sure that your patterns line up correctly, ie., all start on the same row when joining at the yoke. A slight variation in ribbing length may be enough, or you may need to adjust on what pattern row the sleeve cables should start.