Cables

Twisted stitches

Make-one’s

 

While knitting any of these things, I had the hardest time remembering how to get right-leaning and left-leaning stitches. With one, you work into the front of the stitch or with cables hold the sts in the front, and with the other, it’s all to the back. How was I supposed to keep them straight??

I made the connection that BACK/RIGHT (BR) went together and FRONT/LEFT (FL) went together. Then I came up with two random words, one that began with BR and FL — something silly my subconscious probably pulled from my fondness of Alice & Wonderland where they regularly say silly and nonsensical things (“flowy” isn’t even a word!). It’s not really an acronym, but it’s something I could easily remember.

Thus, “BRIGHT AND FLOWY” WAS BORN.

Yep, I told you it was silly. And the reason it’s silly is because I knew that if it was, I’d remember it. It worked. Let me give you a few examples to show you just how well this really works so you won’t think I’m mad as a hatter..

CABLES (4sts)

C4B: sts held to the BACK // creates RIGHT-leaning cable

C4F: sts held to the FRONT // creates LEFT-leaning cable

---

TWISTED STS (3sts > 1 purl, 2 knit)

T3B: P st held to the BACK // makes K sts travel to the RIGHT

T3F: K sts held to the FRONT // makes K sts travel to the LEFT

---

MAKE-ONE’S

M1R: knit/purl into the back of the loop // makes RIGHT-leaning increase

M1L: knit/purl into the front of the loop // makes LEFT-leaning increase

Tell me that doesn’t make perfect sense. But then, I already know it does because I’ve shared this with I don’t know how many knitting students I’ve had over the years when they couldn’t remember which was which with a cable or M1 and it helped them too. So I figured I should create this lovely little printable graphic (below) so you can tuck it in your knitting bag or put in on a bulletin board in your knitting space and refer to it in a pinch. Of course, BRIGHT & FLOWY is so easy to remember, I doubt you’ll need to. ;)

And if you think up something else this can work with, TELL ME! I want to add as many things to the BRIGHT & FLOWY list as I can.