By Ariel Barton

Knitty has had cabled patterns from the beginning. Anniversary used simple cables; Josephine used much more complicated ones. Many of these patterns have involved mini-cables: that is, cables only one stitch wide. Ripley, Leaves in Relief, and Trellis all used a few; Zigzag, Party Apron, and Bamboozelle used them exclusively.

Most of these patterns instruct you to work a mini-cable as you do a normal cable, using a cable needle. And yes, this will produce a perfect cable, with no twisted stitches. It's also an easy method. The problem is that you need a third needle to do it with, and picking up and putting down a cable needle is slow. And a mini-cable involves two stitches-less than a lot of fancy lace decreases, all of which can be made with only two needles. Surely there should be a fast way to work such small cables.

THE DIRECT METHOD

Well, the whole point of a mini-cable is to work the second stitch before the first stitch. So why not just do that? After all, there's only one stitch in the way.

Just stick your working needle into the second stitch on the left-hand needle



and knit it,

...then knit through the first stitch (the one you skipped) and slide them both off the left needle.

To get a cable that slants to the left (if you knit right-handed), you knit the second stitch through the back loop. To get a cable that slants the other way, you knit the second stitch through the front loop.

Note that this is just the opposite of what you would do with a cable needle! With a cable needle, you hold the first stitch to the front to get a cable that slants to the left. This shouldn't be too surprising: if the first stitch goes to the front, the second stitch needs to go to the back.

If you're good at it, this is the fastest, most efficient way to work a mini-cable. On the other hand, for many people, it's the hardest. Also, depending on which direction you go in, you may end up twisting the second stitch as you work it. (This is sort of like the left-slanting decrease k2tog tbl.) You may not care, but many knitters (including me) are picky and think that this looks bad.

Now, we could get rid of the twist by rearranging our stitches. This is what you do when you work an SSK or an SSP tbl.

But if we're going to all that trouble already, we might as well take a second to switch the order of the two stitches to make the knitting a little easier.

SLIP AND SWITCH

Like reorienting stitches, I picked up this technique from lace decreases, specifically from the central chain decrease. (It's the decrease running up the center of Branching out.)

This begins as follows: slip two stitches as if to knit two together.

At this point, the first two stitches from the left needle are sitting on the right needle, crossed. All you have to do to work a cable crossing is to slip them back to the left-hand needle, and then knit (or purl) them through the back loop.

Because of the way stitches are aligned, this procedure can only produce a cable that slants up and to the right. However, the whole setup involves two transfers of stitches from one needle to the other. We can take advantage of this by realigning stitches while slipping them from left to right, and then switching the order when slipping from right to left.

To get a left-slanting decrease, you slip two stitches as if to knit.

Then you slip them back to the left needle, switching them as you do it. To do this, you slip the left needle through the two stitches at once, going from right to left and from front to back.



Then you work the two stitches through the front loop.

Sometimes, you will end up with the stitches on your needles aligned in a nonstandard way. For example, if you had to rip back, you may have picked up stitches facing the wrong way. Or if you knit using Anne Modesitt's Combined method, you may form your stitches aligned in an unusual way. In this case, you have to work a right-slanting cable in a similar fashion. You have to slip two stitches purlwise, then switch them and return them to the left needle by inserting the left needle from right to left, and from back to front.

WORKING FROM THE WRONG SIDE

Are you confused yet? If you are, relax. This part is very simple.

It is often necessary to work mini-cables from the wrong side. (See Bamboozelle for an example.) Don't worry. It's easier than it sounds.

If you want to cross a line of knit stitches across a background of reverse stockinette, then you do exactly the same thing on both the right and wrong sides. A left-slanting crossing, with the right (back) stitch purled, looks like a left-slanting crossing with the back stitch purled on both sides.

If you want the right side to show two crossing knit stitches, then you have to make one minor change to work on the right side. You manipulate the stitches the same way, but then instead of knitting them both, you purl them both.

Simple, no?

WHAT ARE THEY CALLED?

There is not a single consistent system used for naming cables. There are a few common ones.

"Cable" means that the front and back stitches are knit. "Twist" usually means that the front stitch is knit and the back stitch is purled; however, some people use it to mean the same thing as "cable".

"Right" and "left" refer to the direction the cable slants. "Front" and "back" assume that you are working cables with a cable needle; thus, "front" means "left" and "back" means "right."

Sometimes, numbers are included to specify the size of the cable. This is usually the total number of front and back stitches, but some people just use the number of front stitches.

Abbreviations, thankfully, tend to be simple: C means cable, T means twist, L, R, F, and B mean left, right, front, and back, and 2 means two.

Thus, "C2L" probably means a left-slanting mini-cable with the back stitch knitted, but it might mean a left-slanting cable which crosses two stitches over two other stitches. "Front twist" means left-slanting; it probably means for the back stitches to be purled.

MOCK CABLES

Aside from the fact that the direct method occasionally produces twisted stitches, all three of the above methods produce identical cables. However, there are a number of methods of producing something that looks a lot like a cable, but if you look closely, isn't one.

Grecian Plait uses such a pattern. To get something like a right-slanting cable, instead of passing the second stitch in front of the first stitch, the Grecian plait passes it over the second stitch. Another common technique is: slip 1, k2, psso, and then on the next row, work a yarn over between the two knit stitches.

Many other techniques exist. Most of them use a decrease to produce the appearance of a slanting front cable. I'm only going to discuss Barbara Walker's method, because it is the only one I know of that can readily be substituted for the other kinds of mini-cables.

She advocates working mini-cables by working a decrease, and then knitting again into the back stitch of the decrease. This only really works well for right-slanting decreases worked from the right side: you knit 2 together, but don't slide the old stitches off the left needle, and then knit through the first stitch again.

It is possible to do something similar for left-slanting right-side cables and right-slanting wrong-side cables. However, in both cases you have to start by knitting or purling into the second stitch on the needle, as for the direct method, and follow it by a k2tog tbl or a p2tog. And if you're doing that, you might as well just do the direct method.

This method could possibly be made to work with left-slanting wrong-side cables, but would probably be far too much work to really be worthwhile.

SUMMARY

Here's a summary of all four methods of working a mini-cable, going in either direction, and crossing over either a knit-stitch or a purl-stitch background.

In this table, "work 1" means "knit 1" when working from the right side, and "purl 1" when working from the wrong side.

Knit-on-knit cables
	Left-slanting cables	Right-slanting cables
Common abbreviations	C2L, C2F, cable 2 left, cable 2 front	C2R, C2B, cable 2 right, cable 2 front
Cable needle method	Slip 1 st to cable needle and hold in front, work 1, work 1 from cable needle	Slip 1 st to cable needle and hold in back, work 1, work 1 from cable needle
Direct method	Work second st on left needle through back loop, work first st on needle, slip both worked sts off of left needle	Work second st on left needle through front loop, work first st on needle, slip both worked sts off of left needle
Slip and switch method	Slip 2 as if to ssk, insert left needle through slipped sts from right to left, remove right needle and then work next 2 sts	Slip 2 as if to k2tog, insert left needle through slipped sts from left to right, work next 2 sts
Mock cables (right side)	Knit second st on left needle through back loop, k2tog tbl	K2tog, but do not remove stitches from left needle; knit through first stitch again and remove stitches from left needle.
Mock cables (wrong side)		Purl through front loop of the second stitch on the left needle, p2tog
Knit-on-purl cables
	Left-slanting cables	Right-slanting cables
Common abbreviations	T2L, T2F, twist 2 left	T2R, T2B, twist 2 right
Cable needle method	Slip 1 st to cable needle and hold in front, purl 1, knit 1 from cable needle	Slip 1 st to cable needle and hold in back, knit 1, purl 1 from cable needle
Direct method	Purl second st on left needle through back loop, knit first st on needle, slip both worked sts off of left needle	Knit second st on left needle through front loop, purl first st on needle, slip both worked sts off of left needle
Slip and switch method	Slip 2 as if to ssk, insert left needle through slipped sts from right to left, remove right needle, purl 1, knit 1	Slip 2 as if to k2tog, insert left needle through slipped sts from left to right, knit 1, purl 1
Mock cables (right side)	Make 1 purlwise, SSK	K2tog, make 1 purlwise
Mock cables (wrong side)	Slip 2 and insert left needle as if to SSK, then remove right needle. P2tog tbl. Then make 1 knitwise.	Make 1 knitwise, p2tog

 

Ariel is a graduate student in mathematics at the University of Chicago. In her spare time, she reads, plays bridge, folds origami, and, of course, knits.

You can read about her knitting projects in her journal.