At the same time, when you are talking to knowledgeable people, there's the challenge of, "Will I have anything new to say?" The point of a class is to learn things. If students already know the material, why should they spend time in class?
My class this year was about reversible cables. There's a very basic version achieved by working cables on a wide-rib fabric (4x4 or 6x6) and cabling on both sides. There are true double-knit cables, which are an advanced skill. There are twist cables, which is a trick I learned from TECHknitter. (From what I can tell, this trick is still not on TECHknitter's blog.) And there are ribbles, a technique of working cables on 1x1 rib developed by Lily Chin. As with so many things in knitting, the corner cases can get interesting.
Most of my reversible knitting is based on 1x1 rib — ribbles, double-knitting, versa lace. However, it is possible to work reversible cables over 2x2 rib. Lily Chin shows as much in her Power Cables book. I knew cables could be:
- knit, knit crossed over knit, knit — kk x kk
- knit, purl, knit, purl crossed over knit, purl, knit, purl — kpkp x kpkp
- knit, knit, purl, purl crossed over knit, knit, purl, purl — kkpp x kkpp
At some point, I stumbled across Cat Bordhi's e-book Versatildes. I bought the e-book shortly after Cat Bordhi died on 19 September 2020, as I didn't know what her family might do with her work product. I read the book. The projects were interesting enough, but not something I felt inclined to knit. I rarely wear vests. I already have lots of shawls in my closet and plenty of shawl patterns I want to make. But I did notice page 38 which talks about a somewhat reversible cable. It isn't identical like a ribble. I added a mention of Cat Bordhi's technique to my handout. I would bring it up as an aside. "If you'd like to learn more, there's this interesting thing over there."
When Next Level Knitting Conference came up this year, I decided to make a few more swatches. In retrospect, I'm not quite sure why? This is a class for which I already have many swatches, illustrating differences among various methods and types of fabrics. This is one of those situations where what you see in a picture and what you experience in person are different things.
 |
| obverse: normal cable on left, high relief on right |
 |
| reverse: normal cable on left, high relief on right |
Both swatches are big box acrylic yarn worked on a size 4.5mm/US 7 needle. The one on the left has normal cables, kk x kk. The one on the right looks similar, but the cables are much more pronounced. The crossings are purl, knit, knit, purl crossed over purl, knit, knit, purl — pkkp x pkkp.
Assia Brill has spent some time exploring this type of cable. She calls it a High Relief Cable. You can read more about it on her website here.
The important thing is you can add purl stitches on each side of a normal cable crossing to produce a cable that is plump and tall, asserting itself from the background fabric. Even with a background of stockinette, these cables read clearly.
What does this mean for you?
If you are working a cable pattern but not getting a pleasing fabric, try adding a purl stitch on each side of the cable wales. It is a little more knitting and a little more yarn, but probably worth the effort. You could also add cables on a stockinette background, rather than only a reverse stockinette background. This could open up new design possibilities. I encourage you to cast on and try crossing pkkp over pkkp to see for yourself!
Even when you think you have discovered most of what knitting has to offer, there always seems to be another fascinating corner waiting to be known.
Comments