Tip of the week: Use your previous cables as a guide

Once you have decoded your cable instructions and established the first few rows of your project, you have already knitted yourself a quick cheat sheet.

If you reach the next cable in your pattern and have a sudden blank about whether your cable needle needs to be held at the front or the back, look down your work at the cables below to find an equivalent one. Look at the cable you are about to knit - if you have the cable needle at the front, will your stitches cross in the same way as before? If yes, your cable needle is in the right place. For visual learners, this can be a lot more help than reading the cable instructions again.

In general, look at the patterns you cables form at you knit - they make a clear picture on your work, so it should be easy to spot a mistake like the one picture above. Also once your cable pattern is established compare it to the pictures in your pattern. 

This idea of stopping, from time to time, and looking at how any pattern is developing is a good idea for any project. If it doesn't look right, it may well not be.

Tip of the week: Decoding cable patterns

When I talk to people about why they are intimidated by starting a cable project the answers is often that the terminology or abbreviations seem so complicated. They seem surprised when I say that all cables use the same basic steps:

1. Put a given number of stitches on cable needle.
2. Hold the cable needle to the back or front of the work as instructed.
3. Knit or purl a given number of stitches from your main needle.
4. Knit or purl the stitches from your cable needle.

The result is a set of stitches that cross each other.

 

The key to cable knitting is understanding the number of stitches that go on the cable needle, whether it goes to the back or front and what you knit or purl for each type of cable in the pattern. This can seem like a massive puzzle because there are so many different ways that cables are written in patterns.

However, whatever coding system has been used the pattern abbreviation key should tell you what to do for each one. To be honest, it there isn't a key telling you that, I would be inclined to find a new pattern.

There are lots of cable notation systems. My preferences is for the version that includes writing the abbreviations for example as C8B and Tw4F. Here the the "C" generally indicates that you are working all the stitches in your cable in the same way, the number is how many stitches in total are used in the cable and the B means the cable needle is used to the back. Tw means you will knit some stitches and purl others and F is holding the cable needle to the front.

So C8B could be written as "place 4 stitches on cable needle and hold to the back, knit 4 sts, knit 4 from cable needle". BUT even if you think it means that double check - it could mean place 5 stitches on cable needle and hold to the back, knit 3 sts, etc.

Tw3F is likely to be "place 2 stitches on cable needle and hold to the front, purl 1, knit 2 from cable needle. You can see this type of cable on the upper right of the diamond in the picture above. As you can see it slopes to the left which is why you may see it abbreviated to Tw3L.

If your pattern uses a notation you don't like, it is worth writing out a translation list where you note down how you would think of each cable so you can refer to it until you are sure you are getting your pattern right. 

My cable knitting used to regularly be accompanied by what we might call "strong language" as I dropped or realised I'd lost my cable needle for the hundredth time..

I love cable patterns, but I was driven to distraction by how easy it was to lose a cable needle or for it to drop out of my stitches at just the wrong moment.

Then I found my first kinked cable needle.

The bend in the middle means you can let it angle from your stitches if necessary when working your cable and it doesn't escape. No more manipulating your other needles while grasping the the cable needle in a death grip.

It will also stay firmly in whatever piece of knitting you poke it through. I have come home from a supermarket shop and discovered one still securely sitting in the shoulder of the sweater I was wearing. I'd only stuck it there for a moment while I answered the phone earlier!

Sometimes there are really simple solutions that make a big difference.
 

If you want to practice your cables, you could try the Low Tide Scarf

My cable knitting used to regularly be accompanied by what we might call "strong language" as I dropped or realised I'd lost my cable needle for the hundredth time..

I love cable patterns, but I was driven to distraction by how easy it was to lose a cable needle or for it to drop out of my stitches at just the wrong moment.

Then I found my first kinked cable needle.

The bend in the middle means you can let it angle from your stitches if necessary when working your cable and it doesn't escape. No more manipulating your other needles while grasping the the cable needle in a death grip.

It will also stay firmly in whatever piece of knitting you poke it through. I have come home from a supermarket shop and discovered one still securely sitting in the shoulder of the sweater I was wearing. I'd only stuck it there for a moment while I answered the phone earlier!

Sometimes there are really simple solutions that make a big difference.
 

If you want to practice your cables, you could try the Low Tide Scarf

Farewell to Penguins – changing my business name.

 

Today marks the first step in changing my business identity. As of today, my social media and Payhip pattern store are all changing to BronaghKnits.

When I started designing, I didn’t expect it to become such a large part of my life so I relied on my existing Ravelry and social media tag of LaPurplePenguin – a name that was partly a personal joke.

However, as I have increased my designing portfolio and working more and more for magazines, teaching in person and online all under my actual name this doesn’t really make sense. Over the past year I have noticed that I have been referred to simply as “Bronagh” on other people’s feeds, sites and podcasts. With that in mind, I have decided to step out from the penguin’s shadow and use my real name.

I chose BronaghKnits because it sums up what I do – I knit to create patterns, I knit for my health and write about it some times like in Knitting issue 226, I knit to create class and video tutorials (more coming this year) and I knit to help with your specific skill needs.

The first step is to change the social media, then there will be a new logo, a new blog (though I’ll probably run two in parallel for a bit), a new YouTube channel and a new website over the next few months.

I thought about holding off on any changes until everything is ready but that would allow me to procrastinate for every and this was I can start introduce the changes and take you with me on the journey.

And yes, there are worries about some people losing track of me temporarily but I think overall having Bronagh clearly in my names will make it easier for people over all to find me. So it is a bit scary but probably worth it in the end.

So you can find me on:

Instagram - @bronaghknits

Twitter - @BronaghKnits

Facebook page - BronaghKnits 

Facebook group – Knit with Bronagh, because that’s what I hope you will do.

And my Payhip pattern store is here. 

Meanwhile, you can sign up for my newsletter to keep up with developments.

Farewell to Penguins – changing my business name.

 

Today marks the first step in changing my business identity. As of today, my social media and Payhip pattern store are all changing to BronaghKnits.

When I started designing, I didn’t expect it to become such a large part of my life so I relied on my existing Ravelry and social media tag of LaPurplePenguin – a name that was partly a personal joke.

However, as I have increased my designing portfolio and working more and more for magazines, teaching in person and online all under my actual name this doesn’t really make sense. Over the past year I have noticed that I have been referred to simply as “Bronagh” on other people’s feeds, sites and podcasts. With that in mind, I have decided to step out from the penguin’s shadow and use my real name.

I chose BronaghKnits because it sums up what I do – I knit to create patterns, I knit for my health and write about it some times like in Knitting issue 226, I knit to create class and video tutorials (more coming this year) and I knit to help with your specific skill needs.

The first step is to change the social media, then there will be a new logo, a new blog (though I’ll probably run two in parallel for a bit), a new YouTube channel and a new website over the next few months.

I thought about holding off on any changes until everything is ready but that would allow me to procrastinate for every and this was I can start introduce the changes and take you with me on the journey.

And yes, there are worries about some people losing track of me temporarily but I think overall having Bronagh clearly in my names will make it easier for people over all to find me. So it is a bit scary but probably worth it in the end.

So you can find me on:

Instagram - @bronaghknits

Twitter - @BronaghKnits

Facebook page - BronaghKnits 

Facebook group – Knit with Bronagh, because that’s what I hope you will do.

And my Payhip pattern store is here. 

Meanwhile, you can sign up for my newsletter to keep up with developments.

Farewell to Penguins – changing my business name.

 

Today marks the first step in changing my business identity. As of today, my social media and Payhip pattern store are all changing to BronaghKnits.

When I started designing, I didn’t expect it to become such a large part of my life so I relied on my existing Ravelry and social media tag of LaPurplePenguin – a name that was partly a personal joke.

However, as I have increased my designing portfolio and working more and more for magazines, teaching in person and online all under my actual name this doesn’t really make sense. Over the past year I have noticed that I have been referred to simply as “Bronagh” on other people’s feeds, sites and podcasts. With that in mind, I have decided to step out from the penguin’s shadow and use my real name.

I chose BronaghKnits because it sums up what I do – I knit to create patterns, I knit for my health and write about it some times like in Knitting issue 226, I knit to create class and video tutorials (more coming this year) and I knit to help with your specific skill needs.

The first step is to change the social media, then there will be a new logo, a new blog (though I’ll probably run two in parallel for a bit), a new YouTube channel and a new website over the next few months.

I thought about holding off on any changes until everything is ready but that would allow me to procrastinate for every and this was I can start introduce the changes and take you with me on the journey.

And yes, there are worries about some people losing track of me temporarily but I think overall having Bronagh clearly in my names will make it easier for people over all to find me. So it is a bit scary but probably worth it in the end.

So you can find me on:

Instagram - @bronaghknits

Twitter - @BronaghKnits

Facebook page - BronaghKnits 

Facebook group – Knit with Bronagh, because that’s what I hope you will do.

And my Payhip pattern store is here. 

Meanwhile, you can sign up for my newsletter to keep up with developments.