In my last post, I’d started off the back piece of the sweater with a twisted rib, ending with increases interspersed throughout the final WS row of the ribbing.
Now we’re getting into the fun part! ~~> Those delicious CABLE panels 🧶
Here’s where I’m at so far:
My tension at the cabled sections was initially unstable, but it evened out once the pattern was established.
The cables are looking pretty clean, if I do say so myself!
I’m only about a third of the way through this stage of the pattern. Since the row-counts for the 3 cabled sections are 4, 8, and 18, the panels do match up nicely on multiples of 4, even though the 18 messes that up. I’ve just been keeping track of rows in a notebook so I don’t get mixed up. Plus I’ll definitely want to have the same row-count for the front piece, so good I’m keeping track.
Luckily it has been easy to go into auto-pilot once the pattern for the cable panels was established. This portion of the sweater continues like this until the point where the raglan sleeves would be joined in. After that, the pattern is continued, but worked with decreases at the sides for the sleeves.
Minor Cable Issues
I’ve noticed a few places where the cables look a little bit messy.
The boundary K st of a cable will sometimes be loose because of the P st before or after it:
This seems to mostly happen at the outermost st of a cabled panel, rather than the internal ones.
I remembered reading about a tip for this specific situation in this book by Judith Durant:
She suggested two possible fixes:
- Use a bit more tension on those boundary sts, to counter the loosening between K/P sts
- Purl the subsequent P st tbl to twist it and add some tightness
I’m trying out the second option since it has worked for me in the past, and it’s a more concrete fix than adjusting tension, which can be wishy-washy.
I typically don’t prefer to make tension changes when I’m midway through a pattern, but I don’t think anyone (except for me) will really notice such a small change, especially after washing and blocking everything out.
At least it’ll be a good test!
I’ll figure out whether that improves the appearance of the cables and reduces looseness.
Mihir the Cable Guy 