Some people blog lofty philosophical musings; others share cutting political satire. I’m out to help fellow knitters with useful tidbits. Really, I just want to make time spent learning things the hard-headed way more meaningful! So here’s what I learned about cabling a loop and sewing it together so it looks continuous, and you don’t have to hide an ugly seam. (Oh no!)
The pattern said to provisionally CO 20 stitches with scrap yarn, then commence to cabling, so I blithely did just that. After working the full cuff, I thought I could simply pick out the scrap yarn, move the stitches to a needle, and be ready to go. No so fast, Ms. Cocky Knitter! Cables twist (duh), and I quickly had no idea what order my blankety-blank stitches should be in. Frak! OK, deep breaths, surely all is not lost. Surely I can sort this out, pick up a few dropped stitches, rearrange… it’s bulky yarn after all… %$#^%&+**! Forget it, sunshine. Better yet, frog it. Yes, all of it. Lesson learned? When provisionally casting on for cables and planning to connect to another end of cables, do it with a spare circular needle. Don’t know how? Figure it out, or better yet, get a more experienced knitter to show you. (Thanks, Carol!)
Take 2. The cuff is redone, and now the directions say to graft the two live ends together. Really? Knits and purls? How’s that? I found instructions for doing this with a pattern for a gorgeous hooded sweater called Rogue, but they never showed the chart (being a for-pay pattern), so knowing to slip p-wise on stitch 5 or whatever didn’t help. Wise Hilda to the rescue. A million thanks! For anyone else reaching this point in the Knit Picks Cabled Cuff Mittens, here is how I got my cables to match up. (Given that I paid for this pattern as part of a kit, wouldn’t you think they would have saved me the grief of working this out? Enough whinging.)
The above chart shows only the join, with yellow marking the first transition from knits to purls in stitch 3 and the blue marking the reverse. You have to know how to Kitchener stitch / graft, but then you can follow the steps below. Each stitch is listed twice because first you slip the sewing needle through it one way, then later you slip it through and take that stitch off the knitting needle.
| St | Front | Back | |
| 1 | P | K | |
| 1 | K-off | P-off | |
| 2 | P | K | |
| 2 | K-off | P-off | |
| 3 | P | P | transition from knits to purls |
| 3 | K-off | K-off | |
| 4 | P | P | |
| 4 | K-off | K-off | |
| 5 | P | K | transition from purls to knits |
| 5 | K-off | P-off | |
| 6 | P | K | |
| 6 | K-off | P-off | |
| 7 | P | K | |
| 7 | K-off | P-off | |
| 8 | P | P | transition from knits to purls |
| 8 | K-off | K-off | |
| 9 | P | P | |
| 9 | K-off | K-off | |
| 10 | P | K | transition from purls to knits |
| 10 | K-off | P-off | |
| 11 | P | K | |
| 11 | K-off | P-off | |
| 12 | P | K | |
| 12 | K-off | P-off | |
| 13 | P | K | |
| 13 | K-off | P-off | |
| 14 | P | K | |
| 14 | K-off | P-off | |
| 15 | P | K | |
| 15 | K-off | P-off | |
| 16 | P | P | transition from knits to purls |
| 16 | K-off | K-off | |
| 17 | P | P | |
| 17 | K-off | K-off | |
| 18 | P | P | |
| 18 | K-off | K-off | |
| 19 | P | K | transition from purls to knits |
| 19 | K-off | P-off | |
| 20 | P | K | |
| 20 | K-off | P-off |
BTW, if more experienced knitters find errors in the above, by all means let me know. It seemed to work out properly for my cuffs, but as you can see I only RTFM as a last resort!