All about cables

Turn to our expert feature and fall in love with this great traditional technique

Cable charts are a relatively new phenomenon in the UK. They’ve become popular in the past 20 years or so, but before that knitters had only written instructions to follow, which can be complex and therefore, o -putting. Charts simplify the process with pictoral symbols to replace long sets of words. Following a visual set of instructions for cables makes sense, in much the same way as following charts for intarsia does. Rather than long, written instructions for each row, a good chart shows exactly what your cables should look like.

Once you’ve worked one full pattern repeat, your knitting itself can become your chart, which makes knitting easier because you’re not having to constantly refer to a book or photocopy of the pattern.

HOW TO USE CABLE CHARTS

1 Let’s start by looking at a chart for a small section of cabling that would be repeated for larger pieces of fabric. As with all charts, in Chart A each square represents a stitch, so this is a cable panel of 8 stitches and 16 rows. While at first glance it might look complicated, it’s a compound cable made up of one of the most basic cables you will ever come across: a two-stitch over two-stitch cross either backwards or forwards. Written out, Row 3 (the first row where you need to work cables) would be:

Slip the next 2 stitches to cable needle and hold at the back, K2, K2 from cable needle, slip the next 2 stitches to cable needle and hold at the front, K2, K2 from cable needle.

This could then be abbreviated to ‘C4B, C4F’ if the written-out instructions are given at the beginning of the pattern. Even then, if you’re not an experienced knitter it might be hard to visualise exactly what it is meant to look like once knitted, and also it can be daunting to see a whole row of 100-plus stitches written in this manner.

Drawn out as a chart, it’s clear to see how for C4B the first two stitches appear to be moved behind the second two, as the diagonal lines move from bottom left to upper right from the second set of stitches across the first set, showing you that the second set of two stitches need to move over the front of the first set of stitches.

With C4F, the diagonal lines showing the stitch movement draw the eye from bottom right to upper left, making it look like the first set of two stitches is moving across and in front of the second set.

2 Knitted up, you can see how it looks, and how the chart visualises the cable for you.

3 If you have trouble with the black-andwhiteness of the charts, it’s very simple to use highlighter pens and allocate each cable symbol a colour, giving you an even more visual cipher for your knitting.

CHARTS WITH PURL STITCHES

4 Let’s look at a chart that includes purl stitches. In Chart B, not only are we dealing with purls, but also with non-symmetrical cables, where two stitches are moved over one stitch only, and that stitch needs to be a purl to make a reverse stocking-stitch within the panel. Written out, Row 3 would be:

*Slip the next 2 stitches to cable needle and hold at front, P1, K2 from cable needle*, P2, repeat from * to *, **slip the next stitch to cable needle and hold at back, K2, P1 from cable needle**, P2, repeat from ** to **.

This could be abbreviated to ‘T3F, P2, T3F, T3B, P2, T3B’, but perhaps with even fewer clues as to what your finished row would look like than the ‘C4B, C4F’.

The chart, however, shows how the knit stitches set up in Rows 1 and 2 move across the background purl stitches, shown by dots in the chart. It is the standard convention to use a blank square in a chart to show that the stitch is knitted on the RS of the work and purled on the WS, and a dot to show a purl on the RS and a knit on the WS.

5 Knitted up, Chart A begins to look quite recognisable, and as you add colour

6 You can see where the C4F from Chart A also comes into play on Row 5.

If cables are comprised only of ordinary knit and purl stitches, then the basics described above work on all charts. Like many things in knitting, it’s often a lot easier to do than to explain, so I would encourage anyone to try a cable chart at least once, even if until now you’ve been a dyed-in-thewool written instruction person.

All good charts should have a key with written instructions to get you going. Even if they haven’t, though, a few minutes of study and a couple of highlighter pens should be enough to break down even the most complicated cable chart into components that can be easily understood.

ADDING TWISTED STITCHES

7 Some cables use non-standard stitches, such as twisted stitches. In Chart C, there are no blank knit stitches, but there is a loop symbol. This is to show that all stitches are knitted through the back of the loop – they’re even twisted when working a cable. Although the chart looks complicated, there are really only two di erent cables here: one where two twisted stitches are passed over each other (1 st over 1 st) either backwards or forwards, and one where a twisted stitch is moved right or left over a background purl stitch as highlighted. So, written out, Row 4 of Chart C would be:

P1, *slip the next stitch to cable needle and hold at front, P1, K1 tbl from cable needle, slip next stitch to cable needle and hold at back, K1 tbl, P1 from cable needle*, P2, K1 tbl, P5, slip next st to cable needle and hold at back, K1 tbl, P1 from cable needle, slip next st to cable needle and hold at front, P1, K1 tbl from cable needle, P5, K1 tbl, P2, repeat from * to *, P1.

Rather lengthy, isn’t it? Especially if you imagine writing out all 24 rows of this chart. And again, it’s remarkably opaque as to what the knitting will actually look like when you’ve finished the repeat. The chart, on the other hand, gives you an idea of the row you’re about to knit, and helps you see the pattern developing as you go. You can also avoid mistakes before you’ve gone so far they involve much unravelling and despair.

BEING PREPARED

Before starting a project with a chart, it’s sensible to study the chart so that you understand what’s required. You might also find it useful to make a swatch of a repeat section, both as practise and as a reference while you work the main project. Block it and pin it out so it’s easy to look at.

MENDING ERRORS

8 Despair need not be a factor in cables, even if you do discover a mistake several rows back. Here, on a section from Chart A, the first cable on Row 7 has been worked as a C4B instead of a C4F, but it’s not been noticed until Row 13. In a garment this could mean unravelling more than a thousand stitches, but there is an alternative. It helps if you have a spare cable needle as well as the one you’re using, and an old machine knitting needle or latch-hook needle is very useful, you can use a crochet hook too.

9 Work the next row (Row 13) until you reach the cable stitches, then drop the next four stitches of the cable o the LH needle and unravel them down to the error.

10 Now put the first two stitches onto one cable needle and the second two stitches onto another, reposition the cable needles so that the cable is twisted the correct way, and slip them all onto one cable needle 11 .

12 Now you need to ‘reknit’ them using the bar of yarn unravelled from the row above, so with the (now spare again) cable needle, rework these four stitches. This is a little bit fiddly, but doable 13 .

14 Use your latch-hook needle or crochet hook to work the plain rows up to where you need to recable the cable on Row 11, so work the first stitch on your cable needle up rows, holding it on your spare cable needle. 15 Repeat for the remaining three stitches. 16 Once again, split the stitches onto your two cable needles, position them so that the cable is twisting the correct way, slip them all onto one cable needle and reknit that row. You are left with one ‘bar’ of yarn from the first row you unravelled, Row 12, to knit these four stitches with and then you can carry on with the rest of Row 13.

17 Your reworked cable might look a little wobbly, but it is easy to even out the stitches by teasing them with a needle. If they still look uneven after that, don’t worry – by the time the garment is blocked, steamed and being worn, it is highly unlikely to be noticeable.