How to Knit a Basic Braid Cable
Knitting Pattern for a 3-Strand Plait
Also known as the plait cable or 3/3/3 cable, this popular cabling pattern consists of 3 equal-sized 'strands' twisting around each other. I walk you through the knitting pattern in the video below.
The cable itself is 9 stitches wide, but I added another 2 stitches either side of it to form reverse stockinette edges. So overall, I cast on 13 stitches for this pattern.
Row 1 (RS): p2, k9, p2
Row 2 (WS) & every other even-numbered row: k2, p9, k2
(i.e. 'Knit the knits, and purl the purls')
Row 3: p2, C6f, k3, p2
Row 5: Same as row 1
Row 7: p2, k3, C6b, p2
Row 8: Same as row 2
Where k = knit stitches, p = purl stitches, C6f = a front cross stockinette cable, C6 b = a back cross stockinette cable
As mentioned in the video, if you wish to change the direction of the cable strand 'twists', you can do it very easily by slightly changing the pattern for rows 3 and 7 (the cable rows). All other rows stay the same.
You just need to change row 3 to: p2, k3, C6f, p2
And row 7 to: p2, C6b, k3, p2
And that's it!
I hope you enjoy knitting this pattern :)