Tuesday, January 09, 2007

I love you, Cable Needle, but only by comparison

My sister made me a kick ass pair of wool fingerless gloves for Hanukkah that are so beautifully cabled and ribbed that I have pretty much taken them off only under threat of death or in the case of bathroom activities.

I loved them so much that I managed to convince myself that the pattern in Holiday Knits, for which I originally purchased the book after seeing them pop up on Lady Lino's blog all perfectly knitted up (duh, obviously), was within my grasp if I would just sack up and use the cable needles languishing in my needlecase (thank you, Caro - I love this thing lots).

So, after fortifying myself with holiday-shaped sugar, I sat down with a handful of #3 DPNs (they say to use #1's, but I only had #3's, so sue me) , green cashmere from the stash, a half dozen needle markers, an NFL game on the tube and the dreaded cable needle.

A few fated days and an entirely new vocabulary of four letter words later, the gloves materialized as though there was no struggle at all:


And now, just a short week or so later (after much blocking) I've almost forgotten how I swore (loudly and while flipping off my cable needle) that I would never make these ever again, and am almost ready to pull out the other cashmere stash balls and make up a pair for a friend of mine in chilly and faraway Arkansas as a thank you for the holiday hospitality.

Have I sustained a head injury? Perhaps. We'll see how those cables come out this time around. Either way, I will never hate the cable needle as much as the Grommet Puncher. No, not ever. That thing is fresh from the threshold of hell.

6 comments:

  1. Fantastic! They look perfect! Maybe they worked out so well because the cable needles spent some quality time in the needlecase. Those things are magic you know.

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  2. Hey Finny,

    those are super cute! (remind me to send you pics of my completed reversable double knit hat, btw.)

    so i just started cables last night. i wanted to do a beanie with cables (couldn't find an appropriate pattern, so i'm making it up), but don't have a cable needle, so i used an extra dpn... am i missing something? what specific function does the cable needle serve?

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  3. OMG, um, hello, gorgeous!! See, I KNEW that stupid pillow pattern with three bagillion cables wouldn't end up turning you off of them for the rest of your life. And look how well you pulled it off, you have graduated to a whole 'nother level of knittingdom, I would say!!! Man, I am gonna get my knitting post up soon, all this good stuff you and Kel are posting.

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  4. WOW. Look at you go Fin! Love those. Will you please teach me to cable?

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  5. oh my goodness, i'm so jealous. i really need to learn more knitting skills that going in a straight damn line.

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  6. THAN going in a straight line. THAN.

    ppfffft.

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[2013 update: You can't comment as an anonymous person anymore. Too many douchebags were leaving bullshit SPAM comments and my inbox was getting flooded, but if you're here to comment in a real way like a real person, go to it.]

Look at you commenting, that's fun.

So, here's the thing with commenting, unless you have an email address associated with your own profile, your comment will still post, but I won't have an email address with which to reply to you personally.

Sucks, right?

Anyway, to remedy this, I usually come back to my posts and post replies in the comment field with you.

But, if you ever want to email me directly to talk about pumpkins or shoes or what it's like to spend a good part of your day Swiffering - shoot me an email to finnyknitsATgmailDOTcom.

Cheers.