cable

[juanitalouise]

Hi, I'm new and wanted to know a few things about cables. I watched the video on this site. But how do you do the "back" row? :thinking: all knits or purls or knit the knits or what? And are you just plain knitting untill you want the next twist? Thanks for any help

[Ingrid]

Usually for a standard cable, all the stitches, the ones that are on the cable needles and the ones on the regular needle. Then you usually knit these stitches on the front and purl them on the back until the next cable twist is done.

Sometimes in certain patterns, cables 'travel' out and in. then sometimes the stitches that are held are knit with the back ones purled. The patterns for these are very specific about what to do, though.

[juanitalouise]

Thanks for the help. In the example she shows: I would do the frount of the work like she did everytime?Or do I do the twist once,then third row knit the cable and no twist? At the end of the row,purl back all stitches? Do you know of a free pattern online that I can see how it works?

[Ingrid]

Every cable pattern is different. Sometimes you twist every 6 rows, sometimes every 4, sometimes every 12. It depends on the look you want. But the front of the cable stitches are always knit and the back is always purled. The background behind the cables varies from pattern to pattern.

I'm not an expert on free patterns online, but look under the general knitting section, there are links there; there are also free patterns above. I would start with a cabled scarf. This way you can concentrate on the cables and background without having to worry about the rest of it.