Cape Cod by Alice Starmore

I started this over a year ago but put it aside a couple of times for other projects. The pattern is in Fisherman's Sweaters by Alice Starmore. I knit it with Classic Elite yarns Wool Bam Boo, which probably wasn't a great choice. It's too soft and isn't really appropriate for a gansey but I loved the color and the sheen, which seemed well suited to such a feminine pattern. I sized it based on the swatch, which did stretch but not nearly as much as the sweater did when I blocked it.

I made some modifications to the pattern. The shell pattern repeats over 23 stitches. I reworked it so it repeated over 21, which reduced the overall stitch count by 20. The pattern includes underarm gussets and gussets at the neck but the neck gussets were unecessary and caused the neckband to not lie flat so I removed them and reworked the neckband.

Based on the swatch, the underarm measurement should have been 43". Instead, the underarm measurement is 46", and the sleeves also blocked out longer so they're are about 4" too long. Unfortunately, it's not just a matter of ripping the sleeves back 4" and reworking the cuff because of the bands of different patterns on the sleeves. I'd have to rip the sleeves back to the gussets and rework them from there so I'll just live with the long sleeves. It's still a beautiful sweater.



The body of the sweater has shells and wishbone cables. The sleeves are bands of 3 different patterns separated by bands of stockinette.

The neckline, cuffs and base of the sweater are a checkerboard pattern instead of ribbing.

The entire body of the sweater is worked in the shell and horseshoe pattern.

The gussets are also patterned.

I have 18 skeins of this yarn in green that I intended to use for Norfolk from the same book but based on my experience with the sweater, I think I'll use it for Fife, which is a child's gansey with a finished underarm of 36" so it should block out to about 40", which would be perfect. It's heavily patterned as well, which is fine with me.