Who’s ready to start cabling? A small project or two is an excellent way to begin and may lead to a gorgeous all-over cabled sweater in your future! As with any new technique, it’s handy to practice with something like a hat. My Sister Knits has found a great hat for just that purpose!

The Meadow Creek Hat designed by Kate Hudon, who is also known as Wandering Sheep Knitting, is an excellent first cabled project! A fun note about Kate, she is a fellow Coloradoan who lives in Tabernash, just north of Winter Park.

You could use Knitting for Olive Heavy Merino. Colors clockwise are Pomegranate, Soft Cognac, and Pea Shoots.

I just started knitting this hat and hope to have it in the shop by Tuesday. Fingers crossed! Here are some things that I love about this pattern:

the font is large and easy to read
the instructions are both written and charted
the cable chart is large, easy to follow, and has only 6 rows that are repeated no more than 4 times
Kate’s cable directions are written just a bit differently and I think they are easy to understand
this can be made with one skein of worsted weight yarn

So let’s start knitting! Gather your materials:

the pattern
16” needles in two sizes, 6 and 8, and one 32 - 40” needle or DPNs in the larger size for the crown of the hat
one special marker for the beginning of the round, 5 markers for each pattern repeat around the hat
highlighter tape to keep your place in the chart or the written instructions
a cable needle

This is such a good pattern to practice reading from a chart! My eyes go buggy if I don’t color code the symbols so I always color in my charts before I begin and I have fun doing it! I also color the symbols in the legend so it’s easy to tell at a glance what I’m doing.

Cascade Woolpaka, a 60/40 blend of wool and alpaca would make a gorgeous hat! Colors from left to right: color 29, color 21, and color 06.

There are several different kinds of cable needles and it doesn’t matter which one you use. I like mine because I grab the stitches with the hook end and then scooch them around to the straight end to knit them. You use whichever ones YOU like!

Here is a valuable video that goes into depth about all things cable. Even experienced cable knitters might learn something; I certainly did!

If you’d like to practice cabling without a cable needle, here are two videos that show how to do it. The first one goes into more detail, the second one is more streamlined.

This is A Yarn Story Origin, I’m using it. Colors from left to right: Spruce, Lighthouse, and Pacific.

Once you finish the chart, the decrease instructions are written only which makes things a bit easier.

A note about the yarn: if you use a marled or variegated yarn, the cables tend to disappear. Since you’re putting in the work to knit the cables, use a solid or tonal colored yarn to make them take center stage!

So, come into the shop, choose your yarn, get yourself a cable needle and start cabling! You might become obsessed with this technique!

Happy knitting,

Let’s Cable!

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