Playing with cables, and pyjamas for a rhino

So not a title I ever thought I'd use, but there you go! I think I purchased Bill King's excellent book all about machine knitting cables not long after it came out, and thought I'd have a bit of a play with it. As always, I had the urge to jump in around page 30, which probably explains my initial lack of success, but I did get there in the end!

First up was what I'm going to term "missing needles" all over cables. The sample above is worked over 20 needles at T8 (MT+2 for this yarn, which is a 4ply acrylic). It's worked by moving stitches 3 and 4 (I counted from the end nearest the live yarn and carriage) onto the empty needles immediately outside the knitting (and towards the carriage). Then move stitches 8 and 7 into the gap left (which crosses them over stitches 6 and 5), repeat all along the bed. Knit 5 rows, and then do the same crosses but in the opposite direction. This produces S cables, because 20 divides by 4, so you are always moving the same stitches back and forth.

My second attempt was over 18 stitches - same again, but at the end of the cross you will have two stitches and a gap of two needles. I just moved them in so as not to generate a ladder. Knit 5 rows, and cable towards the carriage every time, and then your crosses will always be in the correct direction. This produces an attractive celtic braid, and because 18 doesn't divide by 4 you are now alternating the needles you're moving.

I decided this might make quite a nice hairband, if I crossed every 3 rows instead of 5, so made this - somewhat pressed, to make it lie flat, it's now waiting for some elastic! I started and ended with about 20 rows of stocking stitch at T6 and then cabled for 108 rows - luckily I can figure out my three times table this high, though 81 always feels like a prime number to me for some reason...

This was a short attempt to work a 6 x 6 cable, using the ribber "press off" technique to generate extra localised yarn before the cross. In the book one is supposed to move six stitches over 2, knit 2 rows, and repeat a further two times. I think perhaps I didn't add enough needles on the ribber bed (the book indicates two isolated stitches, perhaps it should be read as 3 stitches together?) because there was no way I could cross 6 over 2, but I managed 6 over 1, 6 times. I think the technique needs another attempt, because clearly it was working! I didn't take a picture of the back but you get horizontal "floats" of the poor, tortured stitch that is moved.

And finally, the rhino - Bertie (Roberta), a colleague's daughter's toy, needed some pyjamas, so I ended up drafting a pattern for some by hand. Not quite the rever collar I had hoped for, but she's a very strange shape and "modern" jersey pyjamas would have been permanent, owing to the size of her head!

I've also got a new definition of annoyed - knitting up to the second buttonhole on a top-down cardigan (Drops Agnes), some 4", only to realise that said buttonholes are on the "wrong" side for a woman. Oh well, it was a good test run of the pattern I suppose!!

Current mood: annoyed