Remember how jealous Ben was of me knitting for another man?

(This post –>> Paid in Full in Bacon)

He hrmphed and muttered and reminded me that he had said he liked a jumper ages ago and I hadn’t made it for him and he keeps feeling cold in this horrible cold Spring.  <<Sulky face>>

He was right. I am a bad wife and an unfaithful knitter. I must make amends.

This was the jumper Ben liked…

It’s Drifter from Rowan 48, this book…

Funnily enough, it’s made in Rowan’s Cocoon, the same yarn as Lawrence’s scarf.

It’s a great design – huge random chunky cables but knit on big needles to make it quick. Ben chose the Cocoon  colour Tundra – mainly, I think, because that is the name of one of his favorite tracks by Squarepusher.  There seems to be a “Music heros” theme going here- do you remember “Bowie” I made him a few years ago? Eek that was 2008! It’s still being worn regularly!

So how is Drifter going?

I’ve done the front and whizzing up the back..

The cables are interesting…

but I found the pattern really hard to keep track of.

There are three different panels of cables – A, B and C with some dividing stocking stitch in between. No problem -stitch markers on the needles divide those up clearly…

Then a separate set of instructions for each panel – oh dear. The repeats are 42 rows, 32 rows and 121 rows(!) Within each set of descriptions there are numerous

“Row n: Same as row 3” (I hate that!)

I quickly could see I was going to get confused and make a mistake so I created this in Excel on my computer…

Most of the rows are “Knit the Knits, Purl the Purls” to make the plain bars between the cables so I just copied in the “interesting” cable parts to the relevant rows and gave myself a key to the unusual cables at the top.

This is how it looked later after the repeats had stopped lining up…

I spent a lot of time making sure this was correct before printing it out. It was the right move – I’m now easily whizzing through and confidant where the cables go – and I can scribble decreases and other notes on here.

But Ben is still cold while I’m knitting – I wonder what I could whip up quickly to make him warmer?….