I'm blushing

Something Blushy has made me blush. Well, actually it was all of your wonderful comments on it and Lynne's truly kind post in which she named me a Rockin' Girl Blogger:

I don't know what to say! Thank you. For a little history on the Rockin' Girl Blogger award, you can read here. I think now that I've been named one, I have to select someone else. So stay tuned!

Some of you asked about how I actually incorporated the cables into Something Blushy. Here are details:

I pretty much followed Wendy's instructions except for the cabling. The cable pattern I used was this 4 row repeat:

1: p2, k3, p1, k3
2: k2, p2, slip 1 purlwise, k1, slip 1 purlwise, p2
3: p2, slip 2 sts to cn and hold to back, k1, k2 from cn, p1, slip 1 st to cn and hold to front, k2, k1 from cn
4: k2, p3, k1, p3

This pattern occurs over 9 sts, so when you reach the point for cabling to start (about 3-4" past the armhole), count the total # of sts on your needle. So it fits, I would advise using your gauge (mine was 5 sts/1") and figure out how big around the garment is at this point. I wanted something close to a 35" bust with the button band, and knowing that cables pull in a bit, I ended up with 188 sts on the needle, which comes out to 188/5 = 37.6 inches around. I don't know the details of negative ease, so maybe my method is too much like guesswork, but I would say just try it on!

Now, count up how many 9 st repeats you could do over your total # of sts. I had 188 sts on the needle, so I could do 20 of the 9 st repeats (180 sts) and then have 8 leftover. Because the 9 st repeat ends with the cabled stitches, I wanted to have 2 purl stitches follow the very last cable on the RS row so it looked symmetric. So, add 2 extra purls, which brings you up to 182 sts. Now there are 6 leftover. I decided to just keep these in st st, with a k3 at the beginning of all RS rows and ending with a k3 on all RS rows. This made picking up sts for the button band easier. I guess the "ideal" situation would be to have exactly a multiple of 9 + 2 extra purl stitches + 2 extra st st so you can pick up the button band easily, but don't have these extra st st stitches showing (though I don't think they are a big deal). If you zoom in on one of my posted photos, you should be able to see the sts I am referring to.

So I did:

k3, [9 st repeat here 20 times], p2, k3 on the right side rows
p3, [9 st repeat here 20 times], k2, p3 on the wrong side rows

When you do the increases for the flares (I followed Wendy's guidelines), all the p2's in the pattern and extra p2 you added become p3 and then p4 (and p5 if you need more room, I did). The p1 between the cables do not get any increases.

The math can get a little tricky. For example, if you had 180 sts, this is exactly 20 repeats. But, you need the extra purl stitches at the end. So to get 182 sts I would do another increase at the neck on each end to get the extra 2 sts before starting the cabling, because if you do only 19 repeats of the pattern, this leaves 9 sts: 2 purls at the end and 7 leftover. This 7 doesn't split in half evenly.

I followed the same plan for the sleeves, except I didn't do extra sts in stockinette. I just kept them in reverse st st. I believe I had 59 sts for the sleeves. This gives me 6 repeats of the 9 sts (54 sts) with 5 leftover. I added the extra 2 purl stitches at the end of the last pattern repeat, so I still had 3 leftover. I just tacked on 2 purls at the beginning and 1 purl at the end. Since this was going to be where my seam was (I don't knit sleeves in the round....), the extra purls were OK. When I did the increases on the sleeves, I only increased the p2's that were sandwiched between cables and not the ones at the ends. I did 2 increase rows on the sleeves.

This was tricky to try and explain, so I hope it's clear! Try and have a plan of attack as you're increasing the v-neck past the armhole. If you need help or want a second opinion on your stitch count and how it converts into cabling, please feel free to email or comment!