My latest knitting obsession is cables, fueled by my Celtic Braid socks.  I've been dreaming of some big, over sized luxurious cabled extravaganza of a sweater in some sinfully luxurious yarn.  The kind of sweater that you wear for years and years until it is so shapeless and ragged that someone makes you get rid of it.

So I have been poring over cable patterns -- books of cable stitches, books of cabled sweaters, and browsing ravelry for untold hours. 

I have come to the conclusion that the most beautiful cable composition ever (in my opinion) is Alice Starmore's St. Brigid from her book, Aran Knitting:




I love the filigree braid.  Unfortunately, the pattern is only available in the one book, which is out of print and sells for around $250 because it is in such high demand.  So, if anyone wants to give me a totally over-the-top Christmas present ....  no, I didn't think so.

Another favorite is Elsebeth Lavold's Ragna sweater, from Viking Patterns for Knitters:



That book, at least, is easily available from Amazon.

This is a project that I will probably mull over for years, particularly since I don't have the yarn for it and once I decide on a yarn and color, it will no doubt be a major investment.

While browsing through every cabled extravaganza I could find on ravelry, I remembered a Rowan pattern that I drooled over for years, and finally dug it out.  It is in the Best of Rowan book, edited by Kaffee Fasset and published by Interweave Press in 1998:


Sugar Plum design by Louisa Harding


Not those colors, I think.  (Although I think that I may have liked those colors back when I first fell in love with the sweater).  I've seen some gorgeous versions of it on ravelry (click on the "6 projects" linky).

I'm thinking about a version of it in rich dark velvet colors of Colinette Jitterbug that is sitting in my stash.  Yes, sock yarn.  How many years would that take to knit?  Oh well, a knitter can dream, can't she?