Cable Me Surprised

This lovely little book was given to me as a gift and ever since I have been itching to make the Chunky Cabled Sweater. Either I didn't have the time or the skills to complete it before. The latter is still in arrears but have made some ground in the skills department. Give me a new baby and the motive is set. There is suitable yarn conveniently making itself at home in my stash. Seems to have all the hallmarks of a perfect project.

Imagine my surprise after a Sunday afternoon of knitting when I arrive at a product that looks like this:


Don't get me wrong, this is only the second cabled project I've ever even attempted, but something seems amiss. Hmmm...did I follow the pattern correctly? Yep, sure did. How come it doesn't look like the picture? I'm confused. Being the novice I am, at this point I am still assuming that the problem is mine. I mean, I couldn't even endeavor to presume that an author who creates such lovely patterns could make *gasp* an error.

Sure enough, that's what's happening here. Now my heart is all a flutter and my stomach has that sinking feeling like when you show up for class and realize the final is TODAY not next month. How will I ever figure out how to fix it? Ah...the internet and it's army of blogging knitters. Surely someone has figured this out already. Nope. No love from the publisher or author either. I'm on my own and I'm really not sure I'm comfortable with winging it. But I want to make THIS sweater. My heart and mind are both set on it. It's beautiful.

So after fretting and muttering and cursing for what felt like a year I say to myself (and the yarn and the dog and the cat, whoever will listen actually), how much would it hurt to chart it out? Conveniently this pattern is written out long-hand with no charts...who thought that was a good idea!? Ok, after I found the graph paper that has been living in my file cabinet since 1990 when I last took a Physics lab, I chart out what the book so erringly has published. EUREKA! It isn't going to be hard at all. It's a stinking typo. Really, a simple, run-of-the mill, typo. Simple I guess in some circles. In this case a 4 where a 2 should be is a REALLY big deal. And this is the way it is supposed to look with the typo corrected.


So for those of you desperate knitters with a copy of Adorable Knits for Tots by Zoe Mellor who want to knit the Chunky Cabled Sweater on page 90, the correction is really simple. Page 92, column 2 the instructions for 6th row of the center cable repeat should say "As 2nd row" rather than "As 4th row." Easy schmeasy.

Here's hoping the knitting gods are with me and I'm not forced to pull out any more stops for this project. I'm not sure the yarn can take it.


And this little guy, well he's strapping to begin with and I may already be running out of time.