The Knitting Guild of Greater Buffalo is not only a friendly organization where one meets people who are passionate about knitting but the Guild is also very serious in its purpose and programming. The two ladies deemed program chairs leave no stone unturned in providing ideas for programs and seeing those ideas to fruition. It was in this way I became aware of Buffalo native and knitwear designer Heather Lodinsky and her two-tone cable method as this was the program topic at one of our monthly meetings.
I am someone who likes to get the most out of anything I join so when I realized this technique was the highlight of a monthly meeting and not knowing how this technique was done, I jumped on the bandwagon a few weeks before to see what the pattern and the technique were all about. I knew a bit about Heather, knew she was a teacher at a then local yarn shop but not having the time to fraternize with anyone local about knitting during my employment years, she was someone I was familiar with only by name.
And, so I began. Heather’s pattern is thorough with written instruction as well as a schematic of the cable technique. This is when I learned slip stitches in design work. I have, in the past, slipped stitches for selvage, maybe even borders, but in all my years of knitting, had not come across slip stitches used for designing the garment.
As a knitter of many years, I have learned the quicker you recognize the rhythm and learn the technique of your stitch, the faster your knitting becomes and more importantly, you gain the ability of learning how to ‘fix-it’ along the way. It is habit for me to ‘study’ for comprehension the stitch and its rhythm, NOT just follow what the pattern says or its rote contents. By the way, the more you understand what you are doing, the less you need to write down. The rhythm, in this case, is a 4-row repeat.
Row 1 ~ with white (color A) / work all stitches following the cable pattern
Row 2 ~ with white / (work all stitches) p the “white purl” stitches, k the “blue purl” stitches
Row 3 ~ with blue (Color B) k all the purl stitches / slip wyb all the knit stitches
Row 4 ~ k all the “blue stitches”/slip wyf the white stitches
I’ll make it even simpler. 2 rows, A and work all stitches.
2 rows B and you slip some stitches as indicated, above.
Do not cut yarn. There is a rhythm and it is fun!
Studying a pattern for comprehension allows you to see mistakes. Now, I believe there is a mistake in this pattern, in both cable sections. I contacted Heather about it but she said the editing team had worked it out. Now, I am not sure what that means so below are my observations.
Diamond Cable Pattern:
Substitute 2/1RC for 1/2 RC on rows: 5,9,21, and 25
Center Cable Pattern:
same problem
Substitute 2/1 RC for 1/2 RC on rows: 5,9,25, and 29
Then, I would include 1/2 RC in the section of the pattern called Special Stitches.
Throughout the knitting of this garment, I followed my observations, above. And, if you are wondering if there is a difference between the directions of the pattern versus the directions, above the answer is yes, there is a difference however, minor.
You will see many changes I made to my sweater as opposed to what you see in the pattern. The next post will be on what I did and why.
Hollyknits 
16 responses to “Two Tone Cable Pullover ~ The Pattern”
[…] Vogue Knitting (sadly, not to my liking), my eyes and attention have wandered. It began with my Gyro (which I call Two-tone on Ravelry) designed by Linda Marveng and I must say, Linda keeps calling me […]
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[…] on one of her designs. The pattern was her two-tone slip stitch cable pullover written about [HERE]. In my experience in knitting, I have not encountered slip stitches to be used for the design […]
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Great texture and colours! Looks fab! :)
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thank you! I am quite pleased with it!
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Another beautiful sweater! I love the colors you chose for it, and the setting is perfect, of course. Kudos to your set designer, stager, and photographer! It takes a big staff to keep up a knitting blog. ;-)
Seriously, you are absolutely right about different ways to look at a pattern. The things I have knit that were the hardest were the ones where I just couldn’t “see” the pattern. Although I prefer written directions, I do like when I can really put it in my head what the pattern is doing – then I can memorize very long patterns, not needing to refer to the pattern for every line. And, as you indicate, that makes seeing where modifications are needed, or where there is a problem in the pattern much easier.
I think it comes with time and experience, though, it is not something easy to teach.
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hahaha . . . the colors are simply because the baroque lustra was in my stash. My yarn has been taking quite the trip around the mulberry bush since retirement. Experience yes, however had someone taught me that big idea of studying the knitting rather than keeping track with paper, I would have learned sooner. Are you aware of all the goofy online tools that are out now for keeping track???
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Your stash is yielding amazing results. :-)
It would have been nice if they even talked about it, true. I remember, though, when I was learning, it was hard to keep track of it all – I have many old patterns with tally marks al over the margins. :-) But somewhere along the line – at the intermediate stage perhaps? I might have been able to understand the concept.
And yes, I have seen posts on Ravelry about some software on the phone – it came up a lot during the Boo Knits MKAL I did. I wondered about what it was, looked at it and decided that even for an MKAL when I have no idea what comes next, it would drive me crazy to try to keep track of my knitting on my phone. I used paper and a row counter and came out just fine. Call me old fashioned. :-)
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or call you smart. True what you say about the progression of learning. The sooner I paid closer attention to the knitting as opposed to the paper (or now, phone) I became a better knitter. Always nice chatting!
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;-) thanks! I call you smart as well.
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This sweater is awesome! So clever and original. And I love this blog design, please keep it for a while (or let me know what it is). It suits you. The sweater too, btw.
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Definitely keeping this theme. I totally agree with you and when I found it, I thought FINALLY!! I’M HAPPY! It is called Gema, found under themes in WordPress. (Launched June ’16) The sweater was a fun experiment on taking a pattern and while learning the two tone cable technique making alterations to the style of it to make it my own. Next post will be about that. I am wondering if you’ve made the big move and hoping it is going smoothly for you.
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Great! No, the big move is in less than three weeks, and we are emptying our house in two weeks. I still haven’t packed my yarn and prepared my summer projects, but soon, very soon…
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ugh as I am imagining your next few weeks. On the other hand, you may be feeling quite differently knowing the move will be better for all. I will be thinking of you . . .
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Thank you.
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This is a great sweater, and looks great on you.
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oh, thank you so much. The fabric, Berroco Lustra is just soft and beyond luscious. I am very happy with the result.
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