Spring is officially here in Seattle, and it is beautiful around here. Daylight Savings has made it easier to be out later and get to enjoy nature. I have been doing a lot of yard work to prepare the garden for Spring and Summer. It has been very meditative to work in the garden, I will admit that digging in the dirt is not my favorite but getting to put new plants in the ground and shape and trim the hedges has been rewarding.

I admit I haven’t spent as much time on my knitting lately, I am not sure if it is the beautiful weather or the fact that my current project feels like a slog. I have to be honest I am too stubborn and too far along on the hat to frog it or put it aside.

This time next week I hope to have a new hat off the needles to share…. and hopefully I will be casting on for my next project.

Recently one of my “work in progress photos” got “regrammed” on Instagram by Brooklyn Tweed. To say that I “geeked” out would be an understatement.  Most people know that BrooklynTweed’s aesthetics is beautiful, their work is always a must look at when they publish a new collection. A couple of years ago I began to get into photography so having a company that takes exceptional knitwear photos take not of one of my pictures meant a lot.

The item I am knitting is Ilia by Michele Wang for Brooklyn Tweed. This pattern is all cables and all the time.

Last year when Michele Wang visited Tolt Yarn and Wool last year to promote her new Capsule Collection for Brooklyn Tweed I went nuts because everything in the collection was so good. I knew that I had to knit the sweater on the cover,  Ilia. Okay, I might have given myself a pep talk to knit this pattern because it requires 4400 yards of fingering weight yarn to knit it (in my size), this would be a stretch for me, but I thought I would give it a whirl and cast on. I am giving myself permission to knit this up as a longterm project.

I realize that this pretty wordy and goes in a bunch of directions but I promise you that there is a purpose. I saw the comments  on the regrammed photo and thought I would answer some general knowledge about cables in case these are “new to you” techniques:

1. Stitch Markers: I  do like a good stitch marker, but when cables are traveling or moving over stitches within a row I don’t use them If I did use them me reverence point would keep changing, and I would keep having to move the stitch marker.
2. Memorizing the Pattern: There are a couple of tricks here, the biggest one is to realize that you only actually need to memorize half the pattern. Most of the cable patterns I have seen have you knit the knits and purl the purls on the wrong side row after you make cables. Simply put if it is a 30-row pattern you only have to remember 15 rows or the right side of the fabric that you are working.
3. Memorizing the Pattern: I do like to occasionally look at the pattern but a lot of this occurs during the 1st repeat of the cable motif. I tend to look closely at the first cable motif so I can turn my knitted fabric into my reference chart for what I am knitting, that way I can read which way to cross the cables and when the cables need to be knit
4. Marking the spot: If you happen to have a pattern that has traveling cables it can be really easy to figure out where you left off if you put the project down for a couple of months…. the trick here is counting how many stitches a cable has moved from a particular place on the cable chart.

So I know these tricks are;t mindblowing me but they do help me get through a pattern with cables.