One of the biggest challenges for me in knitting this sweater has been keeping track of where I am in the pattern. The pattern for the Blackberry Cabled Cardigan is extremely well written and accommodates a variety of bust sizes. The front and back body pieces have a good deal of side and waist shaping, which give the sweater its amazing curve hugging shape, and the cable pattern pattern runs throughout.
This means that while I am knitting, I am trying to keep track of the number of stitches I should have on the needle based upon the size I am knitting, how many more rows between increases and decreases, and where I am in both the cable repeat and the blackberry stitch. For me, this involves a lot of counting and detailed notes.
Now, I generally consider myself to be a sort of tech savvy person. My day job essentially entails sitting in front of a computer. I use mobile apps to manage my grocery list, prescription refills, my daily to do lists, my calendar, and my email. My phone and / or tablet are very rarely out of arms reach. But, when it comes to my knitting, I am a Luddite. I cling to my paper pattern and my pencil, and, with a complicated pattern such as this one, every single page of the printed pattern is filled with notes.
Notes to help me keep track of when I started increasing or decreasing.
Notes to help me remember when to start shaping, and little circles to point out how many stitches I need to have on the needles.
Notes to remind me how many rows I put between the increases and decreases.
And literally hundreds of little hash marks to help me keep track of the number of rows and repeats I have stitched.
I swear, the hash marks are everywhere. If I had to go back and duplicate this sweater based upon my paper pattern and the notes? Well, I think we can all agree that it would nigh unto impossible. Also, my dependence upon a paper pattern makes that much more for me to carry around when I am knitting on the go.
Please, please, please help me. Do you use a knitting app? If so, which one? What do you like about it? What don’t you like? I am willing to spend a little money to find an app or a system to help me break out of my paper pattern trap.
Oh, yeah. Pictures of the sweater.
Look! Seaming! More on that next time.
Cris lives in bucolic western Kentucky with her husband, two children, and a menagerie of assorted four-legged creatures. She spends her days as a librarian and her nights dreaming of a small plot of land where she could raise a few chickens. She can be found on Ravelry as Flarkin.
