Lion Brand Recommendations: The Neutral Cabled Afghan

Jackie Smyth is a Technical Editor in Lion Brand’s Design Department. Today she shares one of her favorite Lion Brand patterns. 

I work in Lion Brand’s New York Design Department, where every day is a bit like a birthday! Wrapped packages arrive every afternoon – each holding a new and exciting design. On a daily basis, we’re all inspired to add way too many new items to our project queues.

When we opened the box containing the Neutral Cabled Afghan, I knew it was something I should put at the top of my list.

A good friend recently moved from New York (a city of steam heat) to less well heated Dublin, so was clearly in need of something to wrap up in on chilly evenings. The colors of the Neutral Cabled Afghan are a perfect match for his color scheme and the cables are lovely nod to his Celtic surroundings.

I’m a big fan of interesting construction techniques, so I was super excited when I saw how this afghan was made. No sewing! And a different stitch pattern on each of the panels means I’ll never be bored.

Just brilliant!

I’ve already finished the first panel and started the second.

The way the afghan is constructed is to join each panel to the preceding panel by picking up stitches. And I know that sometimes it can be a little scary to have to pick up a large number of stitches evenly spaced across an edge.

Here’s what I do: I fold the edge that I want to pick up along in half to find the center and then place a marker at the center. Then, I fold each half of the edge (on either side of the center point) in half and place markers on the center point of each of these sections – dividing the edge into 4 equal size sections.

I wanted to pick up a total of 82 stitches for the second panel, so I picked up 20 stitches across the first marked section, then one stitch at the marker, then 20 stitches across each of the next 2 sections, one stitch at the last marker, and 20 stitches across to the end of the edge.

Another trick I used for this project was to use a smaller needle to pick up the stitches. This isn’t always necessary, but can make life easier especially when working with really large size needles.

I highly recommend this pattern – the big needles and smart construction make it a fun and fast project, and it’s perfect as a house warming or wedding gift!