Ask Patty: A Lovely Cable Bind-off and Graft

Dear Patty

I’ve been reading your tutorials on MDK for years, and I love the detail and the math that goes into them. You are a wonderful teacher! 

I have two questions:

(1) I have a pocket bind-off to do. The pattern requires a normal stockinette stitch bind-off; however, the pocket pattern is cabled. I’ve seen other projects and there can be a distinct horizontal line that I don’t much care for. Is there a way to bind off that keeps to the cable pattern, or would that make it too “wavy?”

(2) Seaming the shoulders in cable pattern—I’ve seen your invisible stockinette stitch shoulder bind-off: brilliant! But how do I deal with cables and purl stitches?

Kind regards,
Patricia

Dear Patricia,

Ah yes, cables are lovely until they are not. When working with cables, we need to consider the suckage factor and tackle the schplay.

AUTHOR NOTE: I was today years old when I found out that “schplay” was not a real word. It’s what my mother would always say for something that flared or spread out.

Used in a sentence:

“I don’t like the way the hem of those pants schplay out.”
“Kids, do you have to schplay out your toys all over the floor?”

Bind-off cables

First, we’ll address the simple question of a bind-off and how to reduce the horizontal braid.

When we bind-off all in knit on a RS row, the braid pops to the front. When we bind-off in knit on a WS row, the braid pops to the back. My favorite for a cable pocket is to bind-off in pattern on either a RS or WS row.

However, when it comes to cables, we need to consider one more important factor to avoid the “wavy” you mentioned: the suckage factor.

Sometimes we are working on a cable pattern and need to bind-off after completing a set number of inches. Depending on the knitter’s row gauge, that might put them on an unfortunate row of their cable repeat.

For example: if you had a cable that turned every sixth or eighth row and the bind-off landed on the fifth or seventh row, you would create a fabric that flares out. Here, we have a cable whose bind-off is straight on one side and flares on the other (Yes. There’s a trick).

Here’s a little cable in progress. You can see how the fabric flares out on the sides right before the cable cross. As soon as we make that cable cross, it straightens up and flies right. That’s the suckage factor. The cable pulls the fabric in.

You can see that if we had to bind-off on the next row, we’d have a problem. If that were the top of a sweater, the shoulder might flare out too much, or if a pocket were sewn straight onto the side, it would poof out. If we tried to do the cable cross and bind-off on the same row, it would leave a very bulky, odd bind-off edge.

What we need to do is find out the difference in width and then sneak in a decrease!

When I measure the width of the six stitches before the cable, it measures 1½”, or about ¼” for each stitch. When I measure the cable width, it is 1¼”.

Easy peasy. I just have to decrease one stitch on my bind-off row. Here’s my perfectly straight bind-off, and you can see where I snuck in a k2tog.

Seaming Cables

I love an invisible shoulder seam as much as the next guy, but to quote a wise sage, you can’t always get what you want. But if you try sometime, you’ll find, you get what you need.

What do we need: Our columns of knits and purls to line up

Why can’t we get what we want: For the same reason we have to cheat when we cut and knit in the opposite direction (last Ask Patty).

When we make our pretty continuous seam, it works great for stockinette, but as soon as you toss knits and purls into the mix, we are exposed for the frauds that we are. We aren’t really seaming our knits head to foot, but taking two pieces facing stitch-head to stitch-head and jogging over by a half a stitch.

That’s why the first two knits look great:

But when we get to that third stitch, our evil plot is exposed—J’accuse! (that’s for Franklin)—a half a stitch!

Hence the stitches jogging over every time we move from knit to purl or purl to knit.

The solution is simple. Just give in to reality and craft a head-to-head seam.

As my mother would say when I looked at the dress that was a little bit prettier but was dry clean only—trust me, practical is pretty enough.

Your stitches don’t line up, but the columns do. I think that’s both practical and pretty.

Patty

P.S. To this day, I don’t buy anything dry clean only.