Preparing for a workshop

Swatch, a photo by Asplund on Flickr.

On Thursday I'm leading a workshop how to knit cables at Litet Nystan. It's the first time I'm teaching cable patterns, so it's exciting! Fortunately, I enjoy swatching: here's one of the two swatches I'm going to let the participants knit.

First there are five ways to use a cable, then another five. I like having several different things in one swatch for comparison and thought it would be clearer with a change of colours.

I'm making progress with the Aberlady sweater, now knitting the second sleeve.

My favourite method for shoulder joins is a three-needle bind-off. This is what the wrong side looks like:

wrong side

Here's how you do it: instead of casting off when you've reached the shoulders you keep the stitches on a needle or a thread. When you've knitted both front and back sections, you cast the back and front stitches of together (with the wrong side facing you unless you want the ridge on the outside - it could be used as a decoration). Back and front will meet beautifully if they end after a whole repeat or in the middle of one:

right side

Ever thought knitters were frightening? I never did - until I saw this post by crochet bloke Theo. Enjoy!