I’m having a lovely time with two jumper projects at the moment – a dk number for me and a handsome aran woolly for a friend.  Both have a form of cable but are coming along really quickly probably due to a few adaptations that I always use for my knits and here they are:

Stitch markers

This is a favourite drum to bang for me and I never do anything with any kind of pattern without them.  It’s so easy to lose concentration when knitting and by dividing your pattern into little chunks of fewer stitches, life becomes so much easier.  You can see from these pieces of knitting and associated pattern charts, the pattern repeats are relatively short and therefore quite easy to remember.  Each time you reach a stitch marker you can check back to your pattern that it started and finished as it should (this is very easy to memorise in a short period of time) and you avoid the stress of getting to the end of the row, realising that you made a mistake somewhere, not knowing where and having to go back – this is particularly irritating when dealing with cables as you then have to be very careful not to drop stitches as you go back.  You also then have the added security of double checking of the wrong side row – are your knit and purl stitches where they should be and, if not, what has gone wrong.  Small mistakes will still happen but you will have already isolated in which repeat the problem occurred and be able to easily remedy it, rather than looking over the whole row and wondering what went wrong and where.

Charts cheats

I’m a big fan of charts and much prefer them to written instructions, which is lucky as most of my preferred patterns are worked from charts only.  Taking in the chart as a whole can look a bit intimidating but a few simple tricks can make life easier.

• By using different colours to highlight the different cables, it’s much easier to see, at a glance, which cable is required on each row.  On my coloured chart, the solid colours represent the knit stitch cables and the ones with coloured outlines show me where I’m crossing knits stitches over purls.
• The knit stitches are left white and the purl stitches are coloured yellow.
• The chart clearly shows where to begin and end for your chosen size and highlights the repeat part of the pattern.  I’ve made this even more obvious with red lines.
• Remember to always read your charts from right to left on the right side of your work, and left to right when you’re on the back.
• A great way to get comfortable with charts is to find a pattern that has both a chart and written instructions.  Ask someone to help you, and shout out what you think the row should be as they check the written instructions.  If you’re right, you’re good to go and will almost certainly find it easier and quicker in the long run.

What are you favourite knitting hacks and helpful short cuts, I’d love to know x