Interchangeable Cables
Hello and welcome to The Ordinary Knitter – Interchangeable Cables, the knitting podcast that’s (mostly) about the projects, sponsored by Ecoflap home draughtproofing products including the Petflap draughtproof pet door. Find out more about the Petflap at thepetflap.com. The Energy Efficiency Podcast is also available through Apple Podcasts, or at podcast.ecoflap.co.uk.
My name is Heather and I’m @theordknitter on Twitter, @theordinaryknitter on Instagram and @ordinaryknitting on Ravelry. This time: finally finishing Taylor, strengthening sock heels, tussling with interchangeable cables, and new yarn, new needles.
Ft patterns:
- Tayler by Kim Hargreaves
- DIY Pattern Weights from Positively Splendid
Ft tutorials:
- How To Easily Uncoil the Wire of Your Circular Knitting Needles
- Tuesday’s Knitting Tip – How to fix curly circular needle cords
Interchangeable Cables
On eBay I’ve found KnitPro SmartStix, which were entirely new to me. They have colours printed along them in 2cm blocks. Now this is pure gimmick for me, I don’t need the markings (see them turn out to be the most useful thing ever in the history of the universe) but I just loved the stripey effect so I splashed out £5.50 and have a pair of green stripey needles on the way! I’m really looking forward to them. I think they’re sharp tips too which could be useful if this new yarn is slightly hairy.
I’ve been meaning for ages to relax my inerchangeable cables as they can become very springy and lively coiling back on themselves through use and my type of storage, which is just stuffing them in a bag and trying to ram the zip home. One reason I prefer interchangeables is that they’re just so much more manageable when you need to put them away.
My husband has mentioned before that all it needs is to dunk the cables in some warm water, as he’s a materials man and knows about these things. I wanted to double check so I looked up a couple of videos on YouTube. Yes, you do dunk your cables in water hot but not too hot, and they magically unfurl into nice manageable lengths. So I used the warm water that was already sitting in the kettle and carefully added some freshly boiled, as I was worried about melting my cables.
I can’t say they unfurled as magically as in the videos. They are a bit less curly, but perhaps mine are just unsalvagable as they’ve been tangled for so long. Interestingly, the one that unfurled the best was the KnitPro cable as opposed to all the circulars, so maybe there’s something specific to interchangeable cables, or those interchangeable cables. I’m not sure it was really worth the bother to be honest. The comments on one video have people putting a damp towel over the cables then ironing them, and someone else uses a hairdryer. I might try the hairdryer and rope in my 11yo and call it a lesson in the qualities of plastics.
Music credit:
“Carpe Diem” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/