Kalen Sweater

My cousin’s son Kalen will sleep through anything, is happy to be held by anyone, and is generally the most easy-going child I’ve ever met.  You know, precisely not like Willow.  But Kalen is Irish for warrior, so this cable-knit is for him, even if he is an entirely peaceful soul.

And anyway I had so much fun with this one.  It made me want to knit cables, cables all the time, cables in a much smaller gauge than this so there could be more cables!  Cables Cables Cables!

As you can see, it's a raglan knit in pieces and then sewn up.  I probably could have made it so it was all in one piece, but nobody likes bottom-up raglans because the sleeve join is such a pain, and top-down the cables would have braided in the wrong direction and that bothered me and I really wanted braided cables.  Plus, with so many cables the sweater is pretty heavy, and the seams give it a little more stability (that was the real reason, I swear.  The braided cables weren't that important to me.  Honestly).

This yarn, Hikoo Simpliworsted by Skacel, is a real find for kid knits.  I'd originally envisioned this sweater in a DK-weight cotton (I love cotton and cables.  I know they don't hang as well, and as you see I resisted the impulse, but I can't help it), but the Simpliworsted is pretty great.  It has some acrylic, but enough merino to keep it feeling like yarn instead of plastic, plus a little nylon, and it's just a nice, squishy yarn.  I used a US 10 needle, as the yarn calls for, expecting it to be too drapey for this sweater, but it wasn't at all. 

But that DK cotton cabled sweater is going to happen someday.  I swear.