Tutorial for Trude Guermonprez’s Lateral Cable

A few weeks ago, I was delighted to find Dragoncrafter’s instructions on making a lateral cable.  This week I’ve been studying Dragoncrafter’s Knitty article on Tree motifs – boy will that help me with my upcoming Cardinal Bird mittens.

Her instructions are clear, but perhaps there is someone else like me who likes to peek over a knitter’s shoulder for tricky techniques?

To begin with, you need either to M1, or have a knit stitch from the previous row that you want to go sideways, like I do in the photo below.

Slip the next stitch as if to purl.

Insert the left needle into both of the stitches on the right needle, from front to back starting with the slipped stitch.

Remove your right hand needle, the two stitches have now been ‘flipped.’  Knit the flipped stitches.

Slip the next stitch on the left needle as if to purl.

‘Flip’ the next two stitches, by inserting the left needle from front to back through the last two stitches on the right needle starting with the slipped stitch.

Knit the two flipped stitches, you will begin to see the lateral cable growing.

Slip the next stitch.

Continue to slip, flip, knit, knit across.

Ending off neatly is a bit of a challenge.  If one row is all you want, then decrease two at then end, to get your stitch count back to where it was.  If you want a thicker lateral cable, Chiyo_no_saro suggests knitting-back-backwards.  I do have some ideas for ending that last stitch in a tidy way, especially if you are using it to end a one stitch ring cable neatly, or in a spot of picture knitting, but I think that can wait for an afternoon with more sunlight to take photos in – like maybe once this monster storm finishes with North America. 

Do leave a comment if you are curious, I’ll be more diligent to photograph it and post it if I know that anyone is actually reading this!