Chunky Cable Knit Throw

Hello all! I hope you’ve been enjoying the summer weather (if you’re in the Northern Hemisphere) by getting some sun and being with those you love! If you’re reading from the south, hold tight to your sweaters and stay warm! I’ve been finding it difficult to knit recently because of the intense, dry heat we have in the Sacramento Valley. Some of the projects get too heavy and hot. One of these being this chunky cable knit throw my mom commissioned me to make for her.

Last year she asked me if I would be willing to make her a throw for her Christmas present. I said yes, thinking it would be simple and take only a few weeks. She produced a complex cable knit pattern that she saw on Etsy that you can buy here. Being a relatively new knitter at the time, I was secretly thinking to myself, “I have no idea how to do any of those things!”. “What in the world was a bobble?” “How do you hold a pair of circular needles?” I also had no idea how to get that much yarn at one time without buying them online and just hoping that it would be soft.

Finishing off the blanket

Pattern design closeup

In August 2013, my hunky man and I explored more of his home country by taking a road trip to Northern Argentina. We stumbled upon an Andean craft fair that offered clay pots, knitted goods and YARN. And a ton of it. I ended up buying four kilograms of hand-spun llama yarn and packed it up in my suitcase somehow. I was a lot of work to wrap the balls myself and pull out some pokey sticks and dirt here and there, but the throw is so heavy and soft.

Petting a baby llama in Tucuman, Argentina.

I obviously got over my initial fear of the unknown and started something I didn’t already know how to do… Something that seemed hard and something that experts only knew how to accomplish. Here I am, 100 hours and 13,000 miles later. Not only do I know how to read a pattern now, I also know that what I am capable of is beyond my imagination. I’m proud of my work and my mom is too.

Mama snuggling under her new blanket