semperfiona | Diagonal Cables

A couple months ago, someone posted this picture on a Ravelry forum. I was very taken with it. I spent some time poking around trying to find a similar pattern, to no avail. There's a link to the original magazine on that page, but not only is it in Japanese, it's out of print.

Some folks on Ravelry have been trying to reverse engineer it from the photograph. I spent an evening doing that myself, but could not make sense of the tossed-off "I did it with short rows" that was given as the method. Finally someone else on Ravelry made a clearer summary of their method, and I was off to the races. Five or eight swatches and about six sheets of knitters' graph paper later I finally had a harmonious combination of needles, yarn and "pattern" and started in on the left side.

I had been worried about how I was going to know when to do armhole shaping, and had obsessively held the little piece of fabric up to myself, but yesterday brought another brainwave. I have a lightweight pullover of about the shape and fit that I want, so I'm using it as a template.