Ship’s Boy

Pattern: My own design, using three books: Ann Budd’s “Knitter’s Handy Book of Sweater Patterns” for the seamless bottom-up raglan design, “Sensational Knitted Socks” for the twin rib, and the twisted stitch cables are from Vol. 3 of “Ueberlieferte Strickmuster aus dem Steirischen Ennstal”.

Yarn: Hand-dyed Knit Picks Swish Superwash worsted, Jacquard Acid dye in Scarlett. I got the kettle-dyed look by simply putting the yarn hanks in the dye pot and not stirring.

Needles: 3.75 mm for the edging, 4.00 mm for the rest

Inspiration: Since both he and Rainer will cross a room to look at and exclaim over a pattern with cables, it is clear that cabling is the way to their hearts.  The shape of cables is so often rope-like; Tias and I were talking about that one day in Germany, and  he liked the idea of a sweater knit with the impression of ropes and rigging. The twin rib reminded me of ladders and rigging in a tall ship, and the Almwegerl cable is clearly a curving wave.

This is my first time incorporating extra stitches in a pattern into the raglan sleeve shaping and I think it worked out quite well. I tried a new way to SSK to make the line lay as flat as the K2tog – slipping the first one knitwise and the second one purlwise, a tip I got from the Knit Picks podcast.

Intention: Knit to be big enough for a lot of growing and as warm as possible for a boy who doesn’t believe in jackets as often as his mother would like. I did double-long ribbing (5”) at the cuffs and then folded it up to allow his arms to grow. Since both Rainer and I can fit it, thanks to the miracle of the ribbing, I’d say this is a sweater he’ll wear out rather than outgrow.

Neckline’s a bit deep, possibly because the dense and squooshy twin rib gave a stitch count of 6 sts to the inch that didn’t necessarily correlate to a row count for the gauge. Am thinking of ripping it back and reknitting it on smaller needles and making it higher – he wants a mock turtleneck height.

Colour: Impossible to photograph.  Insane-making.  Scarlett, but really, Herzblut. You can’t imagine the way this family has become fans of Rainer’s soccer team, really you can’t. The fans of Kaiserslautern are incredible and our family is trying our best to be worthy of them.

“Enough pictures, Mom!”