Cable Knit

Cable knit is the raised, rope-like twist made by crossing one group of stitches over another with a short cable needle, so the columns appear to braid down the fabric. It is the signature of the Aran sweater, the cream fisherman's jumper of the Aran Islands off the west of Ireland, where dense panels of cables, diamonds, and moss stitch were knitted into heavy oiled wool against the Atlantic. The romantic claim that particular cables encoded particular family or clan identities is largely a twentieth-century story, but the cloth itself is genuinely warm, dense, and beautiful.