New Pattern: Heartbound

As we approach my Spring teaching season, it occurs to me that I’m teaching a number of instances of Double-Knitting Cables — but nobody has a reason to take the class because there’s a sum total of maybe 3 double-knit cable patterns out there. I have a double-knit cabled hat that I’m working on, but it’s not ready for primetime yet — so I decided to make a slightly foreshortened version of it in the form of a headband.

Heartbound headbandHeartbound is a lovely continuous-cable design that looks something like interlocking hearts — hence the name. The opposite side, of course, is the same in reversed colors. You can see it modeled the other way around here — and a sample shot of it here. It’s worked in Jaggerspun Green Line and Heather 3/8 sportweight, and the hat will also be done in that yarn. Don’t know how to do double-knit cables? No big shock. The methods I use are different from those I’ve seen before and I document them to some degree in this pattern — although there will be much more complete explanations for the technique in my new book (but that’s still some time away). I also plan to release some videos for double-knit cables with and without a cable needle but that’ll have to wait until I have time. In the meantime, I’m teaching double-knit cable workshops at Stitches West, Harrisville Designs, Pittsburgh Knit & Crochet Festival, and Interweave Yarn Fest this Spring.

I really want to do a shout-out here to Andi Smith, who’s a fellow Cooperative Press author currently working on two-color cables. Hers aren’t reversible, of course, but there are obvious similarities. From looking at her charts, I realized that the way I had originally set up this pattern was not the cleanest possible way, and using techniques adapted from Andi’s charts I was able to get the cables looking and acting the way I wanted. The caveat: not many rest rows. But the end result is stunning, and I look forward to using the techniques more in the future. Andi is also the author of Big Foot Knits, a sock book for people with normal human feet.

Speaking of Cooperative Press, we (my fellow authors and I) have been working on signal-boosting each other’s work for the 2 weeks from the beginning of February to Valentine’s Day. It’s called the #shareCPlove promotion and if you follow me anywhere else you may have seen it. There’s not much time left in the promotion, but if you like indie designers and want to help us succeed (in general, not with anything specific), you can still give us a hand by using that hashtag and joining the CP mailing list. You can check out more about the promotion here. You might even win some cash.