Valley Yarns Pearl Street Cabled Pullover Knitting Pattern

Valley Yarns Pearl Street Cabled Pullover

What Is Being Made

The Valley Yarns Pearl Street Cabled Pullover is a seamless, worked-in-the-round knit sweater designed by Kirsten Hipsky. This intermediate-level pullover features a classic crew-neck construction with a fitted lower body and set-in sleeves. The garment is available in six finished sizes for the lower body, ranging from 32 inches to 52 inches in circumference, making it suitable for a wide range of body measurements.

Techniques Used

This pullover employs several key knitting techniques that define its construction and visual appeal:

• Bottom-Up Construction: The sweater is knitted from the lower body upward, beginning with casting on stitches for the body and later adding the sleeves. This method allows for easy adjustments to length during the knitting process.
• Seamless, Worked-in-the-Round: The entire garment is worked circularly using circular needles and double-pointed needles, eliminating the need for seaming. This creates a continuous fabric with no side seams, resulting in a smooth, professional finish.
• Cable Patterning: The sweater features a repeating cable pattern worked over a 12-stitch multiple. The cables are created using front cross (FC) and back cross (BC) techniques, which involve slipping stitches to a cable needle and crossing them over other stitches to create the characteristic twisted rope effect.
• Increases for Sleeve Shaping: Strategic increases are worked at the beginning and end of sleeve rounds to gradually expand the sleeve circumference, with the frequency of increases varying by size to accommodate different proportions.

Stitches Used

The Pearl Street Cabled Pullover employs a limited but effective palette of fundamental knitting stitches:

• Knit (K): The primary stitch used throughout the cable pattern and stockinette sections.
• Purl (P): Used to create reverse stockinette borders that frame and define the cable columns, providing textural contrast.
• Front Cross (FC): A cable cross worked by slipping 3 stitches to a cable needle and holding it to the front, knitting the next 3 stitches, then knitting the 3 stitches from the cable needle. This creates a cable that twists to the left.
• Back Cross (BC): A cable cross worked by slipping 3 stitches to a cable needle and holding it to the back, knitting the next 3 stitches, then knitting the 3 stitches from the cable needle. This creates a cable that twists to the right.

The cable pattern repeats over 12 rounds, with cable crosses occurring on rounds 4 and 10, while rounds 1–3, 5–9, and 11–12 establish the foundational knit and purl structure that supports the cables.

Materials and Gauge

The Valley Yarns Pearl Street Cabled Pullover is designed to be worked in Valley Yarns Amherst, a 100% Merino yarn with a yardage of 109 yards per 50-gram skein in the Natural colorway. The yardage requirements vary by size, ranging from 12 skeins for the smallest size (32 inches) to 22 skeins for the largest size (52 inches).

Needles: The pattern calls for US size 7 (4.50mm) circular needles in both 40-inch and 16-inch lengths, as well as US size 7 (4.50mm) double-pointed needles for sleeve construction. A cable needle is required for executing the cable crosses.

Gauge: The pattern specifies two distinct gauges. In the cable pattern, the gauge is 24 stitches and 24 rows over 4 inches when blocked. In stockinette stitch, the gauge is 18 stitches and 24 rows over 4 inches. Achieving proper gauge is essential for obtaining the correct finished measurements.

Construction Overview

The sweater begins with the lower body, cast on using a long-tail or preferred method and joined in the round. After working a 2-inch ribbed cuff in knit-one, purl-two pattern, the main cable pattern is worked for 16 inches or to desired length. The sleeves are constructed separately on double-pointed needles, beginning with a 60-stitch cast-on and 2-inch cuff. Increases are worked strategically throughout the sleeve to