Scarf Series 3: The Sublime Cashmere Merino Silk Cabled Cowl

The name of this yarn, Sublime Cashmere Merino Silk, is so invocative of soft luxury, that it is only the incredible texture of the real yarn that can live up to it. This is undoubtedly a luxurious cowl, taking me exactly 5x 50 g balls in the Aran version of this yarn, but in my opinion, the texture of this cowl around the neck is completely worth the investment.
The colour is the delicous 62 Aubergine, and the pattern is easy to knit, and relatively quick. The cowl is knit lengthways, with only a few slightly more advanced techniques used including provisional cast on, an easy cable, and having the ends of the cowl joined in Kitchener stitch. If you have already knit a plain garter or rib scarf, and want something a tiny bit more challenging, this would be a rewarding project, one you could easily finish before Winter starts officially.

Sublime Jumper

I particularly admire the tendency of Sublime pattern books, to contain quite a few patterns for men and boys. Especially impressive is the uncanny ability to write patterns that both appeal to the ultra conservative males of my family, and are reasonably interesting to knit. This is an uncommon combination of qualities. Here is the latest wild success, a red (0167) version of the Hot Chocolate/Oxford Blue jumper from the Third Cashmere Merino Silk Aran Book. Although my model is fashionably solemn, he likes this jumper very much - as he should. I have used the incredibly luxurious cashmere silk merino Aran yarn for a 9 year old boy. This is possibly rather unwise, as 9 year old boys are not known for either their scrupulous care of special garments, nor for staying the same size for long enough to wear out such a garment. However, after this particular boy spent half an hour patting all the yarns in the shop, and declared this one the softest I felt that someone with such natural good taste was worthy of this special yarn. I have made the smallest size (61/66cm chest), adding 5cm to the length of the body and arms to account for the slimness of the recepient in comparison to his height. The rib pattern should stretch, should he become more robust over winter. Making such an adjustment sounds remarkably sensible, and would have been even more sensible had I actually read the pattern dimensions before starting the jumper. I tweaked the neck finishing so that the centre rib panels matched the body of the jumper, being fond of symmetry. Above is the first section of the first attempt at the jumper, in the smallest size + 10 cm, with swatch - as evidence that I even checked my tension in this stretchy rib pattern. The back was rather too long, causing much laughter from his sisters when I held it up against the recipient, and was an entirely self inflicted mistake. Rather than ravelling all this knitting, I have declared that next year, my 10 year old will have a handsome blue version (Clipper 0015) of the same jumper. Growth is not always a bad thing.