KNITmuch | Issue 01

Knitting with cables – C4L
Glenna Harris
Cable needles are essential tools for knitting cabled stitches!
A cable needle
is a tool that
every knitter
should have in
their tool kit!
Knitting with
cables – easier
than it seems!
Cable stitches are among the most
popular kinds of stitch patterns out
there. You don’t need to look very long
before coming across patterns that use
cables – socks, hats, scarves, sweaters
and mittens are all just as likely to
show off different kinds of cabled stitch
patterns. This makes cables an all-yearround
kind of technique, and one that is
very versatile to know.
Cables are made by manipulating the
stitches on your row of knitting so that
a few stitches switch places with other
stitches next to them on the needle.
Essentially, a cable stitch isn’t a new
kind of stitch, just a rearrangement
of other knit or purl stitches. So, the
cable needle is used to help with this
'rearrangement'!
easier than it seems!
All cables have a “direction.” They
travel either to the left or to the right,
depending on which direction the front
stitches move. In the picture above,
you can see three sets of 'right leaning'
cables on the right, and three sets of “left
leaning” cables on the left. All of these
stitches are worked as knit stitches, and
all are worked over 4 stitches in total.
In a knitting pattern, these would be
indicated as C4R for the right leaning
ones (cable four right), and C4L for the
left leaning ones (cable four left).
In the photos below we’ll demonstrate
the steps for working a C4L.
C4L means we are working over 4
stitches for the full cable. Typical
cables split this full number into two
halves, where one half of the stitches
travels in the front of the work. So,
here we’re working with 2 + 2 stitches.
32 KNITmuch | issue 1
Photos by Glenna Harris