Cables, Diamonds, and Herringbones

It may not seem like the best season to talk about British fisherman's ganseys, but I just finished my first sweater.

Here's a close up:

I consulted Gladys Thompson's Patterns for Guernseys, Jerseys and Arans, and Sabine Domnick's Cables, Diamonds, Herringbone for this project - both books feature great archival photos of these amazing, traditional British fishermen sweaters.  I knitted in the round - a method that is not only the traditional way of knitting these sweaters, but also much easier than expected; and made my own pattern by first knitting a gauge swatch from the yarn I intended to use, calculating how many stitches around my sweater would need to be, then doing a lot of math to figure out a pattern that would have a well-balanced and aesthetically pleasing combination of cables, diamonds and herringbones.  Big thanks to the fine folks at The Yarn Tree in W'burg, where I was living when I started this project, for all their help and free advise.