Two-color Stranded Cabling Tutorial
When you are cabling in two colors, the same principles apply as with standard stranded colorwork. Hold your two colors in whatever way works best for you; here, you can see that I hold both colors with my right hand, with my main color (MC) between my thumb and forefinger and my “dominant” or contrasting color (CC) over my index finger. Work up to the cable in question.
On the chart, the two-color cable crossing looks a lot like a regular cable crossing, but with some added colors on the rows above and below. The cable itself is shown in only in the CC, but will actually be worked in both colors. Pay attention to the row above the cable crossing to indicate which colors each stitch should be worked in: the same color as the stitch directly above it.
Now the principles of cabling join the party. Slip the CC stitches of the cable onto a cable needle and hold to the front of the work. When working a two color cable, the CC stitches of the cable will always be held to the front, and the MC stitches of the background will always be held to the back of the work. The next stitch is in MC, and so it will be knit with the MC strand.
Since this is a 3-stitch cable (only being moved one stitch to the left on the background field), the next step is to knit the two stitches being held on the cable needle, this time using your CC strand.
So now you’ve moved the cable one stitch to the left. The next cable has to be moved one stitch to the right to meet it.
Since the next stitch is a MC stitch, hold it to the back in order to move the cable properly. Knit the two stitches of the cable with the CC yarn...
... and then knit the stitch that was held to the back with the MC strand.
Now both cables have been moved, and the knitting returns to standard stranded knitting until the next cable is encountered. The following round is your cabling “rest round” where the cables aren’t moved, so that round is plain stranded knitting.
