Why is cabling better without a cable needle? It's faster and also more convenient to work with two needles rather than three. I hardly ever use a cable needle anymore, unless I have to deal with a lot of stitches or with a more complicated cable.
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We would like to do a 1/1 RC. With a cable needle, you would work like this: slip one stitch to cable needle and hold to back, knit 1, then knit 1 from the cable needle. Let's see how to do this without a cable needle. |
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Insert the right needle into the stitches to be cabled... |
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... and slip them onto the right needle. |
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Insert the left needle into back loop of the first stitch (note: the cable needle would be in the very same place!)... |
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... and pull the right needle out. The first stitch stayed on the left needle, the other stitch has been dropped. |
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Grab the dropped stitch with the right needle... |
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... and put it on the left needle. Now the stitches are in the right order, you only have to knit them... |
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... and your cable is ready. These may seem like a lot of steps to be done for a simple cable, however, with only a little practice, you'll need half as much time for doing the cable (at most) than you would need when working with a cable needle. |