STEPHANIE LAU’S JOURNAL

Grow your confidence with cables

When you hear the word “cables” in fibre arts, usually knitting comes to mind first of all. Cables are so intricate, elegant and luxurious, and they provide such a gorgeous texture to a piece.

I was intrigued when I first discovered a few years ago that cabling could be achieved with crochet. With knitting, cabling is accomplished by moving stitches on and off a cable needle resulting in beautiful twists and turns. On the other hand, cables in crochet are achieved by the clever and strategic use and placement of front and back post treble crochets and front post double treble crochets.

Working around the posts of stitches helps elevate the stitches, enabling the cables to rise up relative to the rest of the piece. By skipping certain stitches and then working around those previously skipped stitches later, we can achieve those beautiful twists and turns that characterise cables.

GETTING THE HANG OF CABLING

My first cabling project was a free pattern I found online to make cabled wrist warmers. I learned how to work cables flat and later used this technique to work cables in the round.

Moving on from this, my first original design using cables was my Cabled Slouchy Beanie. I made a ribbed band and then

“It's astounding how many different looks you can achieve.”

worked cables in the round. These cables give such gorgeous texture, and this pattern is now one of my most popular designs! I adapted the pattern for a toddler and also for use with super-bulky yarn since this design is very easy to modify.

I made a second version of this pattern by working front post double crochets around the cables. You’ll notice that they really help frame the cables and give a nice variation.

Last winter, I designed some cabled legwarmers to wear either under or over boots. I used a similar design as the second version of my slouchy beanie by framing the cables with front post double crochets. These cables make the legwarmers look so elegant and provide such a lovely texture!

This past autumn, I released a brand new cabled pattern called the Chunky Braided Cabled Blanket. I had so much fun working on this particular design since I used jumbo level seven yarn (even thicker than super- chunky) and a huge 15mm hook. Rather than using the typical cable design from my previous projects, for this one I learned a new braided cabling technique. It’s astounding how many different cabling looks you can achieve by switching the placements of your front and back post trebles and double treble stitches!

I'm currently working on a pair of cabled crochet mittens where one set of cables is simply framed at the front of the

“Cables are so intricate, elegant and luxurious.”

mitten. I would also really love to design a cabled cowl or a cabled sweater in the future, so there’s plenty more to keep me occupied with this technique!

ADD TO YOUR REPERTOIRE

“I encourage you to take that next step.”

Even though crochet cabling may appear daunting at first, particularly with the complexity of the written patterns, it really is not too difficult at all. Once you get the hang of the pattern, you fall into a rhythm, and the cabling works up very quickly. I learned from a free tutorial online, and there are helpful YouTube videos also available.

All of my patterns are free on my blog, and I try my best to provide detailed, step-by-step instructions to clearly show the process. If you’ve been hesitant to try crochet cabling before, then I encourage you to take that next step and give them a go! The looks you can achieve are stunning, and it’s always such an accomplishment adding new skills to your crochet repertoire! Crochet cables are one of my favourite techniques, and I’m so happy that I learned how to do them.