Learning cable knitting

Tweet

After several months I finally finished the jumper/sweater I was knitting for Big One, as I reported a little while ago https://www.mylot.com/post/3540335/more-of-the-same-please so after a short break I thought I would start something else. I like knitting or crochet because they are things you can do in short bursts in between other things, or while doing other things such as watching a film or talking to friends without seeming as if you are rudely ignoring them! I wanted to try something new so I have started to learn cable stitch. I found some instructions easily enough online but they explained what to do for the first row, not what happens next – do you do the same as you work back on the next row, or the opposite? Well it turns out you just knit the back row ‘normally’ and then knit the cable on the ‘right’ side of the work, and how often you knit the cable determines how tightly the cable twists. For example a common pattern requires a cable row every 6 rows. To make the cable, you put a certain number of stitches (often two or three) on a special cable needle (green in the photo), knit the following two or three stitches (the same number as you are holding on the needle) then knit the ones on the needle to make the twist. You hold the cable needle at the back to make the pattern twist to the right, and at the front to make it twist to the left. Simple. The patterns look impressively complicated but in fact they are made up of sequences of simple steps, I’m quite excited now to be trying out different patterns. Can you do cable knitting? Have you learned anything new recently? All rights reserved. © Text and image copyright Fleur 2023.