Oooh, Baby!

I can't remember when I have swatched and fiddled and measured and mathed as much as for my FLAK.  Which is saying something, since this kind of thing is not just my compulsion, it's my JOB.  I have made no less than 7 swatches, and at least triple that, if you count how much tearing out and reknitting those required.  That said, I think the result is starting to look exciting. Here you can see the first full repeat (24 rows) of my back pattern.  I ended up with practically no filler stitches at the sides, but I'm okay with that - I never like to devote too much real estate to side panels.

This photo shows my newly rediscovered favorite stitch.  I don't know its name, because I have only ever seen it in Japanese patterns, so I'll call it the Open Baby Cable. It's so delicious because it has left and right-leaning iterations, looks adorable right side up, or upside down (shown here), and requires no cable needle to execute.  The Open Baby Cable is worked over three sts, on every 4th row. In my sweater, I've placed a purl st on either side of each OBC to set them apart from their neighbors. Wanna try it?  Here's how:

Open Baby Cable Right

Pass the third st on the Left needle over the first 2.  Then k1, YO, k1. That's it!  How sexy is that? And you can make all your OBC's lean right for a really beautiful, cohesive effect.  Unless you are a spaz like me, with a pathological need to mirror everything that can be mirrored, in which case you will immediately have to try this:

Open Baby Cable Left

Slip three sts from the Left needle over to the Right needle, purlwise. Now pass the third st on the Right needle over the first 2.  Slip those 2 sts back over to the Left needle, then k1, YO, k1. TA-DAAA!  Sexy Party Trick complete. 

Have fun playing with these (wouldn't they be cute on socks?), but don't say I didn't warn you: they're kind of addictive.  I'd hate to see you go off on a bender and surface on Monday with an Open Baby Cable hangover.  Let's keep things under control, people.  

I'm off to the Astoria Stitchfest tommorrow - see you there!

I'm Back in the Saddle(s) Again

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Thanks, Antibiotics!  I'm almost completely better, even though on Saturday I was hoping just to get well enough to die. I can see why, before they knew better, physicians used to hand out Penicillin like it was PEZ: When antibiotics work, they REALLY work.

Campbell's better, too, though Lindsay and Phillip are still lower than a snake's belly in a wagon rut.  While the other patients barked in the background, I sat up in bed and made saddles for my FLAK.

They're upside down in this shot, but hopefully you'll be able to tell: they're interlocking hearts. Since the saddles continue down the whole length of each sleeve, I couldn't resist having hearts.  On my sleeves.  Get it?  And look! The cables even mirror!  And not because I was clever enough to get that right the first time, either.

Remember when I was wondering what happens when you just flip a cable chart upside down to work it from the top down?  The answer is this:  Nothing.  Almost.  Cables that are symmetrical from side to side will reverse perfectly, like this:

Here's an affable wee 2/2 LC (2 over 2 Left Cross), as seen in its natural habitat of bottom-up knitting.

Here's the same little 2/2 LC, rotated 180 degrees, as would happen when working the chart upside-down.  No problem!

But this cable cross is not the same from side to side: It's a 2/2 LPC (2 over 2 left purl cross)

See what happens when we turn it? Not only are the purl symbols now on the lower half of the symbol; they're on the wrong side of the cable cross.

So even though you could probably get used to reminding yourself as you work that the purl indicators are all backwards, it would confuse some of us (cough-me-cough) all the way to the neurologists' office.

Lucky for me, I have a swell cable-charting software machine, which allowed me to redraw the entire chart, reversing every cable cross that flipped wrong.  Which I still managed to get backwards in several spots (see cross-outs and scribbles on my chart in the photo above) before I sorted it out.

But what should you do if you don't have charting software?  Here are my suggestions:

1.  Don't use any cables that aren't reversible.  Don't be like me and fall in love with a bunch of directional motifs, unless you are sure you can work them upside-down.  If in doubt, rotate your chart and swatch to make sure.  If there are only a few culprits, try correction fluid and/or highlighters to fix a copy of your chart.

2.  Work your FLAK from the bottom up.  Although the FLAK is a top-down garment, you can get Janet's book Aran Sweater Design HERE, where she describes how to work the very same sweater from the bottom up.  You should probably have this book anyway, because it's really good, and has gobs of information you'll use in this, and future cabled projects.

3.  Break down and open a vein.  It won't hurt much!  For only $99 US, you can use the very same charting software employed by yours truly.  CLICK HERE to see the tutorial, and download the free instructions.  If you've ever wanted to change a cable, or a lace, or a stranded colowork design, you'll be happy you did this for yourself. There's a really helpful Ravelry support group for this product HERE, in addition to fantastic direct customer support.

And while I'm enabling you, I might as well suggest that you try out this little gem: The Cable Knitting Handbook, by Annie Maloney CLICK HERE. Check out Annie's Ravelry group HERE for more on her wonderful (and unusual) cable designs. Click on the "Pages" tab there for a wealth of information.

That about covers my progress on cable finding, choosing, and/or placement, up through FLAK part 3.  How's everyone else doing?

Back to the FLAK

A while back, before I fell down the Fana rabbithole, I hatched a Cunning Plan to revive Janet Szabo's Follow the Leader Aran Knitalong (FLAK).  Remember that?  CLICK to see the post about it.

The general feeling at the time was that Fall would be a good time for us, and Fall, it now is!  I'm ready; How about you?

The first instruction is to get yarn: Check.  Then you're supposed to make a swatch (or two): Check.  The swatch needs to be in "filler" stitch. i.e., the allover pattern stitch you'll choose for the sides/underarm area adjacent to the cables.  And it needs to be blocked, so it gives a true reading.  Here you can see that I tried my hand at Star Stitch, which I totally love (lower half of swatch).  Ultimately, though, I decided it's a little too fiddly, even for me, and the fabric it makes is a little too dense.  I switched to a plain old moss stitch, (upper half of swatch) which makes me happier.  And I even remembered to leave myself a clue about what needle size I used: I tied 6 knots in the yarn tail after the bindoff, which reminds me that I was working on size 6 needles.  It's the knitters equivalent of a trail of breadcrumbs...

And its a good thing I did, because I had it in my head that this swatch was the right gauge. Which is not true, it turns out.  Having actually read the pattern, and carefully measured again, I'm 2 sts shy in 4".  Looks like I need to take another whack at it before I press on.

How about you?  Ready to swatch yet?