tutorial

16 kinked cable needle

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


16 kinked cable needle

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


Live online workshop: Learn to read your knitting with confidence

Read your knitting(1)

 

I know that many knitters, especially new ones, can feel held back when it comes to keeping track of rows, recognising stitch patterns and generally know where they are in a pattern.

Well, I'm here to help with a Zoom workshop full of advice and useful tips and tricks from my years as a knitter, teacher and designer,  to make your piece of knitting less of a mystery story.

Description

A 2-hour zoom workshop to help you feel more confident with your knitting from successfully knowing how many rows you’ve worked to finding where you are in a stitch pattern or project.

I will help you understand how to count rows and stitches in a variety of stitch patterns and share tips and tricks on recognising stitch patterns and how to keep track of your place.

Suitable for anyone who finds it hard to keep track in a pattern or confidently count rows and stitches for gauge or to match two pieces of knitting together.

No more than 8 attendees per session.

Stitches covered – stocking stitch, garter stitch, moss stitch, cable and stripes.

Contents

  • Keeping count in different stitches
  • Recognising your right side
  • Finding your place in a project.
  • Matching your knitting to a stitch pattern

BOOK NOW:

Saturday 24 April 11am-1pm

Monday 3 May 2.30pm-4.30pm

Price: £25 per person, a number of £20 early bird birds tickets are currently available for each session. Click here to book

Laughing square selfie


Adapting the Off Kilter shawl

Off Kilter is a free shawlette pattern that I recently added to Ravelry.

P6155146

It is written for 100g/400m of striping 4ply - the sort of thing many people will have picked up at a yarn show and have to hand in their stash during lockdown. Although I don't have picture - the shawl is on lockdown with someone else - it is a great option if you have some Zauberball Crazy.

After I put the pattern up, I was sorting my stash and noticed that I had a cake of Stylecraft Batik Swirl DK in the Coral Reef colourway and decided on an experiment - doing a version of Off Kilter in DK.

P4100639

The Batik Swirl cake is 200g/550m and I used a 4mm needle. Otherwise I did the pattern as written using most of the cake. 

The shawl ended up with a wingspan of 164cm and is 60cm deep at the widest point compared with 140cm and 50cm for the 4-ply version.

P4100640

But if you have something in your stash that you'd like to try this pattern in that doesn't fit these quantities, don't worry, this is a very easy pattern to adapt.

  • If you have at least 100g of 4ply or 150g of DK you will come up with a wearable shawl - maybe try 200g of aran or experiment with chunky.
  • If you are using a thicker yarn, choose a needle size that will give your stocking stitch a little drape.
  • Work the pattern repeat until you have around enough yarn for one more repeat - you may need to weigh your remain yarn at the beginning and end of a repeat near the end to estimate this. Finish the body of the shawl after row 10 of the repeat.
  • The edging will work for any size as long as you have finished the body with a complete repeat.

The only other instruction is to enjoy going Off Kilter and to post pictures of your finished object by creating a project on the pattern's Ravelry page or if you are on Instagram tag me in your post @bromiskelly_lapurplepenguin 


How to: Three needle cast off

In  my post about neat shoulders I mentioned using short rows shape shoulders and joining the seam using a three needle cast off.

When you shape shoulders using short rows you end up with a set of stitches on a holder rather than cast off stitches. You can join them using the steps below.

3 needle 1
1. Return your stitches to needles. Place the two sets of stitches from
the pieces you plan to join on separate needles. I use double pointed
or circular needles to make it ease to line up my stitches.

 

3 needle 2

2. Hold the pieces you want to join with right sides together. You want
the two sets of stitches to line up on the parallel needles.

 

3 needle 3
3. Insert your needle into a stitch  from each needle. Using a third needle
of the correct size, insert the tip into the first first stitch on the front needle
and then the first stitch on the back needle.

 

3 needle 4
4. Knit the two stitches together. Work the two stitches together like a
normal knit stitch. 

3 needle 5
5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 and cast off one stitch. Work the next two front
and back stitches together in the same way and then pass the back stitch
on the right hand needle over the front one as you would in a normal cast
off. Continue to cast off the pairs of stitches all along your seam.
(Here you can see the row of green cast off stitches along the seam line.)

 

3 needle 6
The result - wrong side. On the wrong side you will have a flat line of
cast off stitches along the seam line.

 

3 needle 6a
The result - right side. Here you can see the very neat join. Where
.you join two pieces of the colour, the join is unobtrusive.

 

Lily 7
Here you can see the final result in the Lily sweater.