Cabled Cardigan... on commission?!

     Visiting my mom and her happily hooking friends in the rugmakers guild last week was a great opportunity to show of my WIP sweater. I expected a chorus of ooohs and ahhhs (because Vivian deserves it, of course), but what I didn't expect to hear was that simultaneously dreaded and anticipated question. The question that makes me both praise and lament copyright and creative commons. The question that most non-knitters would think would make me soar but actually turns my brain into terrifyingly jumbled mess of pattern combinations and design possibilities:

"Do you do commission?"

     Yes! I will! Would love to... bite off more than I can chew. So, I should say, "As long as you can wait a bit."

     If I'm going to be getting paid for a sweater (yay!), it needs to be my own original design. So here goes nothing: time for Kelly to make up a cabled cardigan. 

     Inspired heavily by Vivian, of course, since that's the one my customer has fallen in love with. She doesn't knit, so talking about sweater construction is gonna be tricky. I kind of want to do something with a cabled yoke, like maybe a cardigan version of Wisteria, but with cables extended to cover the whole body of the sweater. I've also considered retaining the saddle shoulder element of Vivian, but charting my own cable that incorporates the shaping and using stockinette st instead of seed, or adding additional cables to fill in the negative space and make the whole thing textured. 

    I've been eyeing the Dark and Stormy cardigan from Thea Coleman's Baby Cocktails for a while now. It's got a gorgeous cable detail on the back, and I also love the shawl collar. I think the best thing about it is how the shape of the collar and buttonband make the shape of the sweater look masculine, almost smoking jacket-esque but the details make it a very feminine sweater. I like the raglan here, and that some people have customized with waist shaping. 

     So I would love to do a shawl collar, if that will please my recipient. All I'm really sure of is that she doesn't want a hood, and she wants full closure. Asymmetrical is out. Found one cardigan from Aran Knitting, a book which I may have to buy because it seems awesome and I'm obsessed with cables. I like this cardigan because it has a shawl-like collar and the shaping is in the cables. 

    I could put saddle shoulders on a sweater shaped like Dark and Stormy, and add an aran pattern. Or I could keep it at a simple crew neck cardigan with allover cables and waist shaping incorporated. This lacy cardigan has the shaping built into the pattern the way I'm thinking of... working on sketches of possible cables. I like the neckline and the way the button band was done here.   

     So basically I have too many ideas, and need some direction... need to talk to my customer! After a week and a half of brainstorming this thing I feel a combination of impatience and dread that this will never be an FO. I think I'm ready to send over my sketches and example images that I've collected to be reviewed. When I asked my mom for her opinion, because she knows this woman and therefore her sense of style better than I, she said all she knows is that she'll know what she likes and not be afraid to tell me exactly what she thinks. My kinda lady :)