I am looking for directions for knitting cables without a cable needle.
Thanks.
Is there any advantage to doing cables without cable needles? Other than not having the expense of the cable needles, of course.
I think it’s more of a convenience and time saver. I find that I don’t mind cabling without the needle when the stitches are in front, but don’t like trying to keep track when they’re in the back. I use a dpn to cable, so there’s no expense involved. It also depends on how slippery the yarn is.
Agree with Ingrid. Sometimes it’s much more expeditious to work w/o but there are certain cables that present certain challenges that necessitate the add’l needle. I use a J-hook that cost only a couple bucks. It’s been helpful when needed.
cam
I don’t have much cabling experience, but I do cable without needles when possible. So far I’ve only worked front cables. When I need to cable I skip half of the cable stitches (if it’s a 6 stitch cable, then skip 3 sts) knit the second half, then knit the first half. When I do use a cable ndl, I do as previous posters and use a dbl pt ndl.
Hope this helped!
Interesting…I always use cable needles or dpn’s. I do admit they are a problem if the yarn is slippery so I always need to really be aware at that point. A few times if needing to leave the knitting for a while I have either slipped ends on the cable needle or simple run a large safety pin through the stitches to secure.
By the way…if it’s an expense issue you can also use bamboo skewers (depending on stitch size). Big packs of those are very cheap. I’ve even used broken knitting needles on occasions 
Thank you. Those links were just what I was looking for.
I want to try this because I’m often knitting on the go, such as at my son’s baseball game, and I don’t like stopping and grabbing the cable needle from my bag. Then I put it down next to me, or drop it… I use circular rather than straight needles for the same reason.
Karen
when i am knitting difficult cabled designs (like a saxon braid) i prefer to use a cable needle (well, actually I use a dpn because i can only find the tiny curved cable needles and i dont like those). When i dont use a cable needle, i find that the stitches are harder to keep uniform because they have to stretch much more, but for simple six or four stitch cables that i dont have to constantly read the pattern to make, then i can go with or without the cable needle.
I’ve not been able to master not using a cable needle. I always seem to spend more time picking up the ‘flapping/floating/dropped’ stitches then if I had just used a cable need in the first place.
you do at first, but with practice you get faster.
I’m planning on doing a tutorial for that on here pretty soon. It’ll be in the How To Forum here.