I've Sent A Cable

 A cable [or cablegram] was the historical name given to a message sent by an undersea cable. Isambard Kingdom Brunel built the iron-hulled SS Great Eastern, which laid the first transatlantic undersea cable in 1866. My great great grandfather was on the crew of the ship at the time, and very proud of being there.
For my latest DoubleKnitting contribution I decided to do some cable knitting.

I have not knitted any cable since we retired. My last bit of cable work was at the end of lockdown in September 2020. I knitted one of my niblings a cable jumper for her new baby. It was from my much used Sirdar Baby book, and has a run of two cables centre front. Almost identical to #27 Double Cable in the book! I am really pleased with the definition of this latest pattern – it astounds me that just swapping the positions of 6 stitches can make such a huge difference. So much texture, you can follow the twisting ‘ropes’ all the way up. So very clever.

Pinning the square to the bedspread made it much easier to photograph. I did two identical green squares, Kirsten opted for pattern #34 Allsorts, but instead of using a selection of different colour yarns with a black line between, she used balls of random 'self striping' yarns. She says "I used a fluffier yarn which slowly changes colour, so I didn’t do the stripy pattern in the instructions but just kept on going. I think I prefer the more muted shades, and I like the way the fuzziness blurred the stitches and the colour changes.
I found it a bit tricky to keep track of where I was. The double decrease every other row makes it more complicated than just marking the centre stitch and decreasing from there as the actual centre stitch gets knitted into the decreases along with the stitch on either side."  she added
"When I’m knitting mindless squares, I mark the centre stitch and just K2tog immediately after on every row. Much easier, and no thinking required. There’s quite a difference between ‘mindful’ knitting and ‘mindless’ knitting! "

The way you start with casting on two edges and then keep reducing at the centre to make the diagonal is intriguing - ending with just one stitch to cast off at the top corner.