QUESTION: is there a tip that prevents leggy cables?

#1

I am knitting the Eadon.

Is there a trick, or tip, that will prevent the leggy look that occurs when you are pulling 3 stitches held to the front over top of 5 stitches?

Here is the unique cable of the Eadon. I’m working on the Right Front, and have completed one 14-row repeat that you see below.

The “maneuver” is to hold 3st front, then [COLOR=Blue]K3 P2[/COLOR] off the left needle, then knit the 3 on the cable needle, crossing over top of [COLOR=Blue]those 5[/COLOR]. This can create a trainwreck. A leggy hot mess.

Using a darning needle to jimmy the excess yarn from leggy knits in the edges of the cable is frustrating and time-consuming. :hair:

Question: would the use of a US6 in the right hand be of any help? :?? I know there is a trick to this. (BTW:The gauge needle is a US8.)

#2

That is a beautiful cable. Your problem…I don’t know, some things just don’t look right in knitting. :eyes: You always hope there is a cure, but I’m not sure. The idea of using a different size needle just for that part is one that has occurred to me in several situations but I don’t know if it is really practicable. Lots of fiddly shuffling of stitches around to get the stitches back on the right needle so you can continue on.

I’ll be watching to see if you find a fix to come up to your high standard of knitting excellence.

#3

Thanks for your input, Judy! The cables are so unusual, looking rather like waves that move to the left! HERE is a shot of the model sweater. Her cables are so smooth looking. Maybe because of the yarn, maybe because of technique, maybe because of BLOCKING. Mine aren’t blocked.

I’ve never been a fan of “ah, blocking will take care of it, so continue as is…” What IF blocking doesn’t take care of it?

So, if there is anything I can do to produce a perfect piece BEFORE BLOCKING, then blocking just adds a little more polish.

I have my turkey thigh-celery-veg-rice soup on the stove now, chugging away, so now I can knit a little while. I’m gonna try that US6 for the right needle when I come upon those 8 cable thingies. I might just use a US6 DPN…work the 8…then transfer them back to the eight before moving on.

I might not be visualizing this right. “working the 8” with the US6 might be pointless if I’m gonna immediately transfer them to the US8 circ. The US8 might open the US6 stitches and my whole scenario is bust! Gah! :wall:

I remember seeing something about cables…about legginess…maybe on a Master Knitter thing. I can’t remember where. I’ll dig through my computer bookmarks…:??

#4

I looked at some of other FO’s on Ravelry and it’s not uncommon to see that the cable looks like that upon closeup, but after it’s finished it seems fine. Blocking maybe? Or just the yarn relaxing? On basic cables I’ve sometimes wrapped the purl stitch the opposite way to make it tighter. I’m not sure if this would work on this type though.

http://www.ravelry.com/projects/handknitsbysusan/eadon
http://www.ravelry.com/projects/multitasker/eadon
http://www.ravelry.com/projects/LaurieM/eadon

#5

Dollyce, even on the picture you shared, although it looks great, if you look closely the lines of knitting in the wave cable don’t look as perfect as the lines of k and p in the straight sections between the cables. I think it is one of those things you can’t get absolutely perfect no matter what you do. Good luck.

#6

I agree with you about the “miracle of blocking”. I’d rather knit something as perfectly as possible, get it right and then do the blocking step. But…I do think this will even out in blocking. You could try blockng a cable swatch since that would take the suspense out of waiting for the finished parts of the sweater. I’m also interested in the result of the smaller needle experiment.
(Sorry if this seems disjointed. I’m so distracted by the wonderful idea of turkey-celery-veg-rice soup.)

#7

The Turkey-Celery-Veg-Rice soup: here’s how this came about!
(although I make soups all the time…this one is different!)

I placed a grocery order from Safeway.com. I clicked on the fresh celery…clicking quantity “1”. But the quantity box already contains the increment of “1”. I knew this. But I got distracted…and clicked “1”, causing the 1 to become “11”. Voila.

The next day, the Safeway order arrived…and I had 11 bunches of celery, and 11 Sara Lee (frozen) strawberry cheesecakes! LOL!

I realized what I’d done…and although it’s not hard to use up the frozen Sara Lee cheesecakes little by little (they serve 4)…the ELEVEN bunches of celery have been challenging!

Well, I love Campbell’s cream of celery soup…so I looked online for “homemade” cream of celery soup…and lo behold! lots of delicious recipes! Most need “chicken stock” to give them depth of flavor!

So I’ve been cooking up chicken parts, or turkey parts (thighs) to get my “stock” (later, adding the meat to the cooked celery & stock) and each batch of soup has been using up 2 bunches of celery! The key is to let the chopped celery simmer in the stock for a long long while, reducing the celery to [U]almost [/U]wanting to mush up.

Then, when you add either jasmine rice, or white beans…and of course onion, slivered carrot, etc…you have a really delicious soup! I like to add curry powder in modest amt. Salt-pepper to taste.

Caution: if you add cream, or milk, or canned milk…DON’T COOK THE SOUP ANY MORE. The milk will curdle. It tastes fine, but looks like crap. Nothing more unappetizing that itty bitty curdly milk thingies. So what we do is reheat the leftovers in personal portions in our microwave, or gently warm in a pan on the stove. You can add the cream as you go, too. Leave it out of the soup until serving!

I’m down to one celery bunch! Yay!

#8

I’ve been incapacitated the past few days. I experienced a sudden "posterior vitreous detachment"
at tail end of my art show on Saturday night. [B]Floaters and Lightning Flashers[/B] followed. Plus some blurriness. Oy vey! Scarry.

No knitting for the past few days! :pout:

Anyway, I haven’t knit but two rows of that next repeat. What I tried first (before smaller needles) is: I knit the cables very carefully off the very points of my Addi Lace tips. (the new Addi Lace tips have a very long nose…very graduated…like a long diving board instead of a shortie like OPTIONS, and you can actually work from them alone, not the shaft)

[COLOR=Blue]The result is a great improvement![/COLOR] :happydance:
[B]
I also took Jan’s advice[/B]…and I wrapped the purl stitch clockwise…which one? you ask…the purl stitch that immediately precedes and follows the knit stitch of the actual K3’s of the cable. Because it’s THAT knit stitch…the very first or last knit of that cable leg…that gets all wonky and leggy.

Any cable K3 leg, if it has a purl sitting next to it…that purl stitch gets wrapped clockwise. Then on the WS you simply knit it through the back loop ‘to right it’…to ‘seat it’ correctly again.

I think wrapping the purl stitch clockwise eliminates excess yarn from piling up in between the knit and the purl…creating the leggy knit stitch.

This is hard to describe in writing.

:psst:
When the floaters (big ones!) and lightning flashers didn’t go away overnight, my family insisted that I go in to ER. I guess they were worried about stroke, etc. Internet medical information can be helpful, but also makes the imagination run wild. So in we go to the ER.

I was in the ER yesterday for 4 hours yesterday, tests, etc, etc. In the end, they referred me to a specialist. They just don’t have the equipment to look into the eyeball. But they did rule out stroke, etc.

I went to the Retinal Ophthalmologist today. He turned both my eyes nearly inside out…and discovered the problem. [B]Good news: [/B]so far, the vitreous membrane detachment has not managed to also pull the retina away from it’s neighbor, the choroid. THAT would be called retina detachment, which cannot be left unattended.

My eyes are still blurry from the whole examination. But I think I can knit in a few minutes here…and finish that repeat on my Eadon!

Oh we knitters…we can’t be stopped for long, can we? :hug:

#9

Yikes, that sounds scary! I’m glad you had it checked out and they found out what it is. How long does it take to repair itself?

I had two opthalmic migraines that kind of freaked me out. There was no pain, but I saw what I called “sparkles” out the corners or edges of my eyes. Last about an hour both times and has never happened since. Weird.

Re: the wrapping of the purl. It works very well for the first purl following a knit when doing ribbing, too. Nonaknits had how to do it flat (wrap the purl the opposite way and then ktbl on the back, but I was knitting in the round. I discovered that when you wrap the purl under when knitting in the round it doesn’t show on the front side of the work. The back is twisted, but if you’re making a hat or other thing that has a clear front it’s not a big deal.
http://knittingandmore.blogspot.com/ That’s interesting that it works on both sides for you.

#10

Oy vey, ArtLady! That’s frightening. I hope this gets better soon for you! :hug:

#11

UPDATE:

Well, using the smaller size needle didn’t pan out. The outcome didn’t justify the fuss.

However, knitting those cables off the tips of the needles helped a lot.

I discovered that the ‘leg’ occurs due to “slipping 5, hold to front; knit 3, then P2 K3 off cable needle.” The reach pulls the stitch at the outermost location and stretches it out.

Where this occurred, let’s say on a Row 3…then on Row 5, when I got to the obnoxious 'leggy stitch", I would use the tip of my needle, reach down to the leggy stitch in Row 3, pull it up and put it on the needle, and knit it together with its sister stitch on Row 5. This removed the extra yarn from the leggy stitch. If you follow me…

Here is the completed Left Front!


After blocking I am certain that the ripply appearance of the cabled band will flatten out and behave!

This yarn is 65% wool, 35% bamboo.

Those white threads are row markers, and will remain there until all 5 pieces are completed. Back, Fronts and Sleeves. Only then will I breathe easy that all pieces are a mirror image of one another with regards to lengths, etc.

#12

Yay! It looks beautiful!

#13

Thank you for posting the solution which is very useful. I do like your lovely color choice for this sweater.

#14

And you know, we knitters are our own worst critics. The knitting police isn’t going to get up close with the magnifying glass. I once read an expression: It’s done when you can leave it alone.