Cable tied!

Do not adjust your set, the picture is yellow! I print out my patterns in yellow to help me to read them, I am beginning to wonder though, if I might be a little number dyslexic! Pretty aren’t they? A friend of mine made each one in a lovely Aran wool and they inspired me so much I thought I might take up knitting needles again. 

When I was a child I was a fierce knitter, my barbie had the most elaborate fair isle jumpers imaginable – ok she was lucky that she did not have to move her arms, as they seemed to come up as fair isle straight jackets but I loved knitting. I would make complex patterns in my head, and stitch them out in my small scale of twenty or thirty stitches. 

One stumbling block to all knitting however, (no I won’t mention the toddler’s jumper I tried to knit after I was married, I think there was something wrong with my scale – I could produce a whole range in straight jacket knitwear, but there isn’t much call for that). I digress – my stumbling block was cabling, it looked too complex, confusing, I had seen people using short needles and could not make it out. However, inspired by the beautiful cabling in my friend’s cushion I vowed to give it a go. 

Several you tube videos later  (this one is very good) and a brief lesson from a 96 year old, I finally mastered the technique. 

This is an experimental piece, I wanted to play with the technique – changing the width of the cables from four stitches to two and creating a purl dip that you can see in the middle of the third section. I love cabling – it creates a whole different texture, one that I can hopefully explore successfully. 

I have experimented with increases and decreases, as well as twisting from the front, (knit row) to the back (purl) row. Now I have mustered the technique I hopefully picked up the needles for another great challenge – following a pattern. Hence the dyslexia, I try – I really do to follow someone’s instructions but I hit a blank – or it somehow doesn’t work. After a few rows of *following, going wrong, un picking, picking up – knitting* repeat * several times over, I picked up my crochet hook. 

I will show you how it grows until you see the finished article in the meantime see if you can guess what it is! 

Re-invention of wooly wonder

This cushion started out as a jumper from a charity shop, it is a gorgeous cashmere wool jumper in a lovely delicate shade of pink, although the computer does strange things with colour! It is also square, but the angle of the camera gives it a slight wedge shape! 

Before the transformation, I love the scarf too, but give me time and it will magically transform to something else. 

Here is the detail of the middle panel which I have smocked, I love the depth of the smocking it really gives the cushion some lovely structure. 

Will post a tutorial on how to make your own but could not wait to share, as you can see it still has my chalk markings on it!