| Brenda and Tricia gave a talk to the club about magic cables. They brought along lots of examples and samples to show everybody, as well as several garments which were passed around for all to see close up. The club machine was set up and some members used the punchcards and experimented with the technique. |
| Traditional cables are made by removing two groups of stitches and swopping their position on the needle bed. Depending on the number of cables in one row this can be a laborious task. Magic cables are made by using a punchcard (or similar method for your type of machine). The pattern function that is used is tuck stitch, this places a loop of yarn over the needle to be tucked and builds this up over several rows. Subsequently, these are released with a knit row. After several rows of plain knitting you pick up the group of loops and place them on a needle to the left or right depending on the direction of the cable.This creates a sculptured fabric that has wonderful texture and is very similar to cabled fabric. In some instances there may be lots of loops and you will need to check that these remain on the needles. Weighting the work well will assist with this.
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| I believe the originator of the style is Rikki Mundstock and there are patterns to be had, probably the best source now would be eBay or Amazon. You may be lucky and find some in your favourite retail outlet. |
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| Brenda and Tricia both agreed that all the instructions needed to be read thoroughly before you commence knitting. In order that you understand the sequence and the evolving pattern. You would, of course, need to knit a tension swatch too. As Rikki is American, and as these patterns were written some time ago you may not be able to find the yarn used, replicating the tension is therefore essential for accuracy. |
After refreshments, April & Lyn kindly showed a film about the making of the knitted boat that was exhibited at Alexandra Palace in 2010 during the annual knitting exhibition there. It was extremely interesting and everyone enjoyed seeing how members of a community, knitters and boat builders worked together to create an original piece of art.
If this wasn’t enough, we had the opportunity to buy extra bits and pieces for our machine from one of our members who sadly has had to give up machine knitting.
