Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Hey, I Can Cable Knit!

While I've got more things on needles that I care to confess to, I felt compelled to try something different with my knitting. I was always a little puzzled by the idea of cable needles, but I thought I'd give it a try. I have a nice little pattern book that gave easy instructions for a simple cable stitch. So I tried it. And it works! Not sure if I'll finish this for a narrow little scarf, or try something more ambitious.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love to knit and always was afraid of trying to do cables. But they're really not that hard. I made a sweater once that had cables and a lot of other tricky things and it turned out fine. Wish I could find the directions to make another one.

Anonymous said...

Looks great! I have that same thing about too many things on the needles.

Unknown said...

Yeah -- learning a new knitting thing is not necessarily a good thing. That makes me way too prone to getting new patterns, new yarns, new needles, etc.

Kirsten said...

Your cables look great! I am still in the process of mastering them. I have a great pattern for a small cabled clutch purse that I am dying to knit, but I still need to sit down and practice my cables before I make the jump.

Unknown said...

Kirsten -- Here's the really simple pattern I tried out (I just did two repeats for a total of 23 stitches on the needle):

Multiple of 11 stitches, plus 1

1st Row (and 3rd and 5th rows): P1, (K2, P6, K2, P1)
2nd Row (and all even-numbered rows): K1, (P2, K6, P2, K1)
7th Row: P1 (K2, move 3 stitches to cable needle and hold in back of work, P3, P3 from the cable needle, K2, P1)
8th Row: (same as 2nd row)

It's a little weird having the cable needle hanging around in the back as you're knitting, but you get used to it. And since with this pattern, you only have to do it with 3 stitches, it's not that long. Give it a try!