# Knitting cables - tip for holes/spaces



## RedDirt Cowgirl (Sep 21, 2010)

When Bad Thing Happen to Good Knitters is revised in 2013 - best tip for me was how to tighten up holes (they nicely call them "spaces" in cables - "Try working the stitch before and after each cable through the back loops."

And here's the mesmerizing bit: "When you twist a stitch, the stitch under it tightens and makes the hole in the row below disappear. This technique is also helpful if the cable has a hole between the two sets of stitches."

I've read so many books I can be a real pain about it, and classes & workshops allazoo, but this never sunk in for fixing cables. And - I still am challenged that the effect takes place in the row below. Talk about expanding one's perspective...:ashamed:


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## Kasota (Nov 25, 2013)

What a great tip!!!!  Many thanks!!!


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## hotzcatz (Oct 16, 2007)

At first, I thought it was about holes in cable needles and not cabled _knitting_.

Hmm, I wonder which type of knitting it is that they do that knitting the back loops works to tighten things up? Doesn't Continental or was it English or whichever, already work the back loops?

Well, duh, of course a cable would pull the stitches together. Sometimes, just to not have it pull so much, I'll do a knit/purl in one stitch a row before when it is cabled directly next to each side of the cable. The next row, do the cable. Then row after the cable will have a knit (or purl depending) two stitches together before and after the cable. That adds an extra stitch in at the cable area to keep the fabric of the knitting from pulling.

You can also get more cable definition by adding in one or two purls between the knits that make up the cable stitches. It makes the cabling more tricky since you have to remove the stitches for the cable plus the ones for the purls in the middle of the cable. To do the cable, you knit the cable stitches, then put on and purl the middle stitches, then put on and knit the remaining cable stitches.


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## RedDirt Cowgirl (Sep 21, 2010)

Hotzcatz, you should be writing your own book - taking a free hand to patterns is an art. Thanks for laying it out!


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