This Cottage Craft Black Cherry yarn sure is sturdy! It's been ripped and ripped again and again. The top down raglan with the big swinging cable didn't work because it should have been all purl with just the cables instead of a line of purl to start the cable. Didn't look right and never would have. RIPPPPPPP

Restarted Shalor with the Black Cherry and the original patterns. Joe asked where the V shapes were. RIPPPPPPPPPP. Out come Annie Maloney's cable chart books and there were the right shapes. #95 is the cable to the far right. Parts of #71 make up the V shape. The Black Cherry is showing the cables, the gauge feels good on US#5 needles and the sweater is finally a go. This is part of the sleeve which I keep trying up against his arm. Looks big but so far it fits well.

The Cottage Craft Black Cherry is not going to work for Shalor. I went to "Sweater Wizard" and got the dimensions for a simple raglan top down that would give a finished chest of 54". Of course I cannot leave anything simple so am seeing if one of Melissa Leapmann's "Continuous Cables" will work on the front and back.



I may have to put this on a long cord and wash it to see if the division between the knits and purls where the chart starts will lay flatter. If not, I'll rip back to there and just do some vertical cables. The purple "Town and Country" sweater is going well. The back is almost done so time to decide on how to do the sleeves - top down or as designed.

Lots and lots of snow lately. Last one was 18" and as you can see, it's getting a bit deep!

Cold? You betcha ya'll and it has a long way to go before it bottoms out. Got probably 18" of snow settled on the ground but more coming. 10F here now but it was 22F this morning and the wind has picked up and here comes the Alberta Clipper. House is staying at its usual 63F but you can hear the oil burner kicking in a lot. So the remedy is hot soup and knitting.

The purple Town and Country is proceeding well and I really like working with the Cascade 220. It will be finished long before our next visit south. The sweater in the round is done to the armholes, right front is done and the left 2/3 done. Next will be the back and then deciding how to proceed with the sleeves. I'll probably try knitting the shoulder saddles and then picking up the stitches for the sleeves. I do much better with sleeves top down.



Joe threw me a loop today and asked for a cabled sweater. This from a man who has not worn a sweater in our 26 years of marriage. Same person who can usually go one day on a flannel shirt in the winter before it really needs a wash. Fantastic man, love him immensely but does this sound like a wool Aran in his future. ????? Joe is 6’2” with a 52 inch chest (not a big belly) and long arms with a line backer football player neck.

The other day he found me with books, pamphlets, patterns, charts all over the knit room and got really interested. He picked out 3-4 he really liked and then pointed out things he liked and didn’t like about each one. He says due to the house being kept a lot cooler and his “age” he’s not as warm as he wants to be. Does he realize by the time this is done, it will be July?

The one he likes the best is Shalor by Penny Straker.


This is an older pattern, recently updated with more cables on the sleeves and larger sizes. It is a raglan that would be knit in pieces and sewn up. He likes the honeycomb front but doesn’t like the “O” between thin lines on each side of the honeycomb. He thinks it should have a “V” instead. The side and sleeve heavy cables he likes a lot.

Couple of years ago we had picked up some Cottage Crafts 2 ply light worsted weight wool on one of our RV trips up into New Brunswick. I'd started a raglan then but never finished it. I've been ripping it out, re-skeining the Medusa looking curled yarn, washing and then re-balling. Nice wool and worth the time to do it.



I've been making a good sized swatch so that the cables can be individually measured for size. I'm substituting two of Annie Maloney's cables, #117 which is called Celtic Cable and a smaller #84 V shape. At first I didn't think the cables would show up well in this Black Cherry color but it does. Phew or I would have had to order more yan. What a shame that would be right?