Knitting a Cabled Twist

One thing that took me a long time to build confidence to try was cable work.  Once I tried it, I realized I was silly for waiting so long.  I will say, you need to be a patient knitter if you want to do any kind of elaborate cable work, it is not fast knitting, but you do not need to be an expert.  Cables are actually fairly easy to master.  I think their difficulty comes in the details. (The devil is always in the details, right?) With that in mind, I thought a good place to start was a simple twisted cable.  Obviously, there are many different shapes you can create with cables that produce beautiful and elaborate motifs.  Think of beautiful celtic knots and you have just chipped the tip of the iceberg.  However, before meandering left and right with cables and creating intricate braids with loops in and out of one another, I think simple, symmetric twists really help cement some of the fundamental principles of cable work and are a good place to start.  Also, all of the steps I outline here are applicable to any cable work with only minor modifications.  Just make sure you read your pattern carefully, but you will have the tools you need to create any kind of cable your heart desires.    

 The tools I referenced above are mental ones, but you also need a physical tool for cable work.  There are a variety of commercial cable needles available and it is really your personal preference that dictates which is the best one.  Also, if money is tight or your urge to cable is immediate, you can use a pencil or extra double pointed needle to accomplish a twist or any other cable work.  My own preference has led me to the straight, notched cable needle.  I find I can manipulate it with greater ease than the hooked variety and the notches really secure my stitches from falling off.  

The next thing is to learn what a twisted cable looks like in a charted pattern.  As I have mentioned before, it is crucial to study the key of your pattern prior to digging into the knitting.  There can be custom symbols for cables, but the ones I have come across tend to follow the same basic notation.  For a symmetric twist, the symbol typically looks like the photograph below.  These photographs are from an actual pattern.  (The paper got a little crinkled because my toddler decided it was page that just had to have some crumpling.)  There is both a left and a right twist, so the two you see are representative of each of those and I will include steps for accomplishing both.  

​In the charts below, the actual twist is illustrated in row one.  The subsequent rows have no cabling but are essential to allow the development of your twist.  Trying to achieve twisted cables without allowing some spacing between the actual twists would not yield a pleasing result.  Always give your twisted cables some room to grow.

The first twist I will do, and the one depicted in the photo at the top of this post, is a left twist cable.  If you look at the cable, the twist runs in an upward spiral from the right to the left.  It is also important to note that cables need what I will call "negative space" around them so that they can pop forward in your knitting.  In this example, we will have two purl stitches before and after our twist to accomplish that.  Think of when you knit ribbing, you alternate knit and purl stitches.  This allows your knit columns to pop forward and your purl columns to recede to to the back.  Without that purling, you would have no ribs.  The same is true for cables.

So, first things first, knit your pattern up to where you are instructed to cable.  I am going to do a 3/3 cable twist, meaning I will have three stitches for each of the two chords I am twisting together.  Your pattern my have a different stitch count, perhaps a 2/2 cable or a 6/6.  The number of stitches here only affects the thickness of each chord you are twisting together, or rather, the overall width of your cable.  If you reference the charted pattern I included, you can see from both the chart and the key that we will slip three stitches and knit three stitches for a six stitch total. Thus a 3/3.  

Once you get to the cable in your pattern, you will slide the prescribed number of stitches onto your cable needle from the lefthand needle (the stitches in your working row that have not yet been knitted).  In my example of three, I slipped three stitches from my left hand needle onto my cable needle, shown in the photo above.  I like to hold my working yarn with normal knitting tension and keep it back, out of the way when I do this.  It takes a little practice, but gets easier the more you do.  The end result will be that your working yarn is still on your righthand needle, the next three stitches will be on your cable needle, and the rest of your unknitted row will remain on your lefthand needle.  

For the left twist, you then hold your cable needle in front of your work, meaning it should be between you and your knitting.  You then proceed to knit from your lefthand needle like the cable needle is not there. If you find your cable needle getting in your way, just gently hold it still with a free finger as you knit.  It is important to be mindful here, though, you do not want any stitches slipping off of your cable needle. It can also feel a little awkward because you will have a little bit of a stretch to make when knitting behind your cable needle since you have essentially skipped stitches that used to be there.  In my example, you should knit three stitches from your lefthand needle, the same number of stitches that are being held on the cable needle. 

Once you have knit from your lefthand needle, you will pick up your cable needle and, using your righthand needle and working yarn, knit the three stitches off of your cable needle.  You simply hold your cable needle in your left hand and treat it like your lefthand knitting needle.  Depending what type of cable needle you are using, you might have to manipulate your stitches a little to get them to the point where you can knit them with ease.  Obviously, if you are using a hooked needle, you will have to shimmy your stitches out of the u-bend.  With notched needles, you will need to free your stitches from the notches so you can knit them on to your righthand needle.  Make sure you do not twist your cable needle around.  You use to left side of the cable needle to slip the stitches, but you must move the stitches to the right side of the needle before knitting from your cable needle.  

Once you have knitted from your cable needle, you are finished with the twist.  Because you have given your stitches an "unnatural" stitch order, you will find that there is a bit of a wonky space between your cable and the rest of your work.  You will need to anchor your cable with more of that negative space I mentioned earlier.  In my pattern, after my 3/3 twist, I purl two.  This secures my cable back into the fabric of my knitting and allows it to pop forward.  

I've tried to capture the negative space in the photograph below.  Notice how it looks like it is behind the twist?  That is the three dimensional affect you want.  

Now, as promised, let's look at a right twist.  A right twist cable spirals upward from the left to the right, the opposite of the left twist.  There is only one crucial difference in the steps to make a right instead of a left twist.  Once you slip your stitches onto your cable needle, in our case three stitches, you hold it in the back of your knitting before knitting from your left hand needle  This means your knitted fabric and your working yarn will all be in front of your cable needle.

One you have your cable needle behind your knitting, you knit three stitches from your lefthand needle, just as you did for the left twist.  Then, after these stitches are complete, you once again pick up your cable needle and knit the three stitches from your cable needle onto your right hand needle using your working yarn.  

I've tried my best to capture these steps in the photographs here.  Notice it is the left side of the twist that seems to reach forward and move toward the right.  The right side of the twist recedes back and behind.

Below, you can see a completed right twist cable.  The pattern I am working on frames in the cables nicely with two knitted columns and purled negative space that allows everything to pop forward.  The true trick with cables is to take your time and pay attention.  Make sure you are careful with the stitches on your cable needle, they will want to wiggle free because they think you are knitting them in the wrong order, the little boogers.  Cables are not inherently difficult, but the do take patience.  Now go forth and do the twist.