Sometimes my brain is a little slow. It is as though the part I need is taking a little nap and only once I'm halfway through whatever it is I'm doing, that side wakes up, yawns, and says, "wait, wait... what are you doing? Why are you doing that? No. No. No. Look, you know how to do this. Remember? This is how we do this."
"Thanks," I say, and mumble to myself, "could have told me this 15 mins ago when I was looking like a complete idiot."
That's pretty much what happened the other day when I started working the cables on Pioneer.
The pattern calls for C2B - which required you to slip one stitch to a cable hook, hold it in back, knit the next stitch from the left needle, and then knit the stitch on the cable needle.
An illustration:
The cable hook. I prefer the U shaped hooks - never have been able to get the straight ones to work properly.
You slip the first stitch to the hook and let it hang in back of your work.
Knit the next stitch from the left needle. Then knit the stitch waiting on the cable hook.
And there we have the traditional method for working a cable. This is exactly what I do when 4 or more stitches are involved.
All this seemed like a lot of fuss and bother for a 2 st cable. Surely I could do this more efficiently without the cable hook. (Keep in mind, the part of my brain that would be most helpful was still asleep at this point.)
I have been playing around with cabling without a hook, where you slip stitches off, pinch them between your fingers, slip them here and there. Ok - admittedly, I only have the vaguest notion of how it works, because I've never gotten it to work for me. I thought that surely I could have success with just a 2 st cable! Nope. Not so much.
Back to using the hook for holding 1 stitch! 1 measly stitch meant that I had to keep track of that stupid hook all day.
That's when the slacker part of my brain woke up.
"OMG, is that what you are seriously doing?" laughs the brain. Between snorts she says, "Why didn't you just knit into the second stitch first, leave it on the needle, then knit the first stitch?"
Oh. Right. That would work.
Hands at the ready.
I knit into the second stitch of the cable.
Then, without trying to slip off that second stitch, I move over and knit into the first stitch on the left needle.
Now that both stitches have been worked, I can slip the old ones off the left needle, and I have a 2 st cable with no hook! Ta da! I'm pretty proud of myself.
Thanks very much to my assistant during the photo shoot today. He was very charming and only chewed the yarn a little.
In other knitting news, I am making progress on the sleeves for Connor's sweater.
The back is done.
That means that all the boring bits are almost complete and I can start the cabley front.
It is going to look great on him.
I've also treated myself to a little spinning. Here's 4 ounces of handpainted alpaca by Spunky Eclectic. Colorway - Lichen.
Seems that I have a thing for alpaca lately.