It occurs to me this might have been a useful Hot Tip to offer up at the start of the Amanda knitalong. (Oops.) I’m always encouraging people to knit cables early and often — such an insanely simple thing with such a huge effect. All you do is slip a designated number of stitches onto a cable needle or spare DPN, knit the next stitches from your working needle, then knit the stitches from the cable needle. And voila, a cable! That’s all it is! In my world-class illustration above, you would need to do this exactly two times to create the fabric pictured, and the world will think you’re a savant of some kind. The only trick is remembering whether to hold the cable needle in front or back of the work while doing this, as that determines which direction your cable will twist. Hold it in back for a right twist. Hold it in front for a left twist. I’ve never heard a really perfect tip for remembering which is which, but I once heard Josh Bennett say that the best thing he’s ever come up with is to say to himself, “I’ll be RIGHT behind you.” Meaning if the held stitches are behind the work, the cable will twist right. Right = behind. After hearing that, I mentally added “wouldn’t want to get LEFT out front.” And I’ve never struggled with cable directions since, even though this pair of sayings is relatively random. So I’m offering them up to you in case you find them useful, and fully expecting many of you to have other/better suggestions on top of that. Bring it on!
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