Who says that cables are only for winter? As a lifelong cable-knitting aficionado, I strongly disagree with that! One can knit and wear cabled knits all year long. Even if you live in Southern California!
Of course, the fiber matters. For my latest design, I chose the Berroco Modern Cotton DK , the beautiful blend of Cotton and Modal Viscose. Both fibers are Summer-friendly – they’re cool, have a good absorbency, machine-washable and have a very soft hand.
Now let’ talk about the properties of this yarn that makes it perfect for cable projects.
The Berroco Modern Cotton DK is an S-on-S-plied yarn.
S-on-S plied yarns - also called multi-thread or millefili yarns - are constructed from ultra fine single plies that are S-twisted into a 2 ply yarn. So far so normal. But multiples (often 6) of these are plied together themselves with an S-twist, hence the name S-on-S.
This differs from traditional yarns where most often a single ply is spun with a Z-twist, and then two or more of these are plied together in the opposite direction, giving a yarn with a final S-twist.
The result of the S-on-S construction is a light, airy yarn with lots of bounce. But it's also sleek and well-behaved, with the high level of twist keeping the fibers firmly caught up within the body of the yarn. And it is also round in cross-section, which makes it perfect for cable knitting, because the rounder the yarn, the more «pop» the knitted texture has. And that’s what we need: very pronounces plush cables.
For my new design, Coquille Top, I chose the cable stitch pattern, which reminded me of French Rococo. This decorative style was often inspired by seashell shapes. A French word for seashell is Coquille and that’s how the new design found its name. Few days after I decided on this name, I discovered a totally unintentional pun! Coquille means shell and the design itself is a shell! Ha! :)
The top is worked from the bottom up in the round. Reverse stockinette stitch is the best background for the elaborate cables, in my opinion; the set-in sleeves are worked in the round from picked-up around the armhole stitches with short-row cap shaping.
I hope you will enjoy working on this project!
