Working Cables over Purl Rows

I am often asked why my reversible designs require so much purling. The answer is that working cables between purl stitches makes the cable/design stitch pop up from the surface of the fabric. This also makes it less visible from the back.

I showed these swatches in my previous blog post. In the little swatch, the grey & purple were worked on the purl rows and the blue & green on the knit rows. On the back of the fabric you can see strips of blue & green.

On the larger swatch, the blue & green are worked on the purl rows and the grey & purple on the knit rows. The pattern formed on the back by the purple lines is very distinct. The effect of the grey on the knit rows is evenly distributed across the whole fabric so we don’t perceive its effect.

On both swatches you can faintly see effects on the reverse side from the cables on the purl rows too. It is just less obvious.

I don’t think I have talked to you about the imperfect reversibility of Fission Knitting before. If you knit only one side of many of my Fission designs, you would faintly see the design through on the other side. Adding cables to a marled fabric will distort the back side….I plan my designs so that the distortions are not too obvious. Many of my designs are heavily covered in cables on both sides — this is necessary to hide the reversibility imperfections.

Please let me know if that makes sense. I am happy to talk about specific designs and how I hide the imperfections if you are interested.