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Fisherman's Pullover

I recently purchased a few hanks of Cascade Yarn's Cloud a 70% merino and 30% baby alpaca wool in Ivy Green.  This is an unbelievably soft worsted weight yarn and the chainette construction gives it strength.
See the miniature chain links in the yarn?

This yarn called to me the minute I brought it home and I had to find the right pattern to use that would show off this colour and style of yarn.  It took a bit of searching but I found Lee Gant's Fisherman's Pullover found in Cascade's 60 Quick Baby Knits.  The pattern uses a couple of my most favorite knitting stitch types, seed and cable stitches.  Both are easy to knit and pack a punch in terms of the effect they create.

A close-up of the seed stitch in the Fisherman's Pullover

The seed stitch is a simple knit one, purl one and on the wrong side the knitter purls the knits and knits the purl.  This creates a texture that looks complicated and does not curl, thus it is perfect for all sorts of edging.  It is one of my favorite textures, see above.

The cable - braid
The Ultimate Source Book of Knit and Crochet Stitches defines cables as a magical stitch ". . . (that) beguiles the eye with its sinuous twisting with elaborate interlaced effects."  There are a couple of types of cable in this sweater.   The first type produces a pattern resembling a twisted cord or steel cable. There are two twisted cables running up the right and left sides of the back.  They are created by knitting a 3 stitch braid every 4 rows.  A cable is created by holding stitches either in front or in the back of the work while knitting stitches; then the held stitches are knit which creates the twist.  The repeat of this every 4 rows causes the braid to look like a tight metal cable.

The cable - wide panel or sometimes referred to as the antler stitch
The 3-stitch cables seen in the middle of the back, called the wide cable panel, is created by moving the cable twist 3 stitches every time a cable twist is done (every other row).  The interesting part is the repeat for the braided cables is every 4 rows and the wide cable panel are repeated every 8 rows.  That means the knitter needs a mechanism to keep track of where s/he is in the repeats. This is where the Peg-It Knitting stitch counter works great.  It is rather old-timey but certainly does the job well.

Put all the stitches together and this is how it looks

So far only the back is completed, but like Fair Isle knitting, cables seem to draw me in.  I have to continue to knit so that I can see the emerging textures and design.  Tena, my knit buddy, often talks about her satisfaction with cables.  I have to say I totally agree with her.  This rather adult-like Fisherman's Pullover will look great on a baby.
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