Reversible Cables

Last Thursday (the third Thursday of the month), the Huddersfield branch of the Knitting & Crochet Guild had its monthly meeting - a workshop on reversible cables, led by Marie.  It was a new technique for most of us, in fact most of us had not even heard of reversible cables before, so it was a really useful workshop.  And a lot of fun - everyone was intrigued by the idea and it was the best attended meeting to date.

Marie had knitted several swatches of cable patterns to show us how to make cables reversible,  i.e. the same on both sides.  Ordinary cable patterns have a definite right side and wrong side - on Aran sweaters, for instance, all the texture is on the outside, and the inside is completely different and much flatter. But that isn't ideal if you're knitting something like a scarf - you would want both sides to be interesting, and preferably the same.  If you want a scarf with a cable pattern, then reversible cables are a solution.

I have knitted one of Marie's swatches (though I didn't get it finished on Thursday).  It's a complicated one, involving two different cable patterns, and gives a good idea of the kind of result you can get with the methods that Marie showed us.  You could make a really nice scarf based on this swatch.

And the other side looks exactly the same! It's amazing.