Cozy Cabled Legwarmers

Remember those cute knitted booties I made last fall? Well, my friend Jamie loved the cable pattern, and asked me to see if I could translate that pattern into some leg warmers for her. She's a personal trainer, so she wears a lot of fitness leggings (like... all the time. They're all really cute too), and thus would like a pair of legwarmers for winter. This conversation happened last fall... and I'm finally getting around to finishing them up... a year later.

They're actually pretty simple. I'm knitting them flat on straight needles, and plan to secure them up the sides with a bunch of cool buttons.

I started by casting on 60 stitches and knitting a 2x2 rib for about 1.5 inches, or 8 rows. I then increased to 66 stitches (increasing in the center of  each cable). It took me forever to figure out what the heck I had done on the first one when it came time to making the second one... so I ended up unraveling a good three pieces of ribbing because nothing was turning out right. Ha ha. I had just forgotten that I increased before starting the cable pattern.

Here's a quick chart to lay out the start...

The chart views the knitting from the front side; V is a knit stitch, while a blank cell is a purl stitch. The section between the dark lines is repeated until the legwarmer is the desired length. I finished it off with more 2x2 ribbing- about 3 inches or so. The top will be the calf end so there's no need to decrease back to 60 stitches.



Cables look really complicated, but they're really quite simple to do. This pattern uses both front and back cables, which makes the twists look like they're going towards or away from each other. To make a cable, you simply slide a few knit stitches onto a cable needle (3 stitches in this case), and let them sit at the front or back of the work while you knit the next 3 stitches. Then, the stitches on the cable needle are brought back into play and knitted onto the "done" needle. It seems a tad awkward at first, but after a few more rows, the tension evens out and you get a cute little braided cable!

Here's a look at a finished leg warmer, laid out flat.



And here's how it will fold over to make the tube. I'm still debating if there will be buttons all the way up the side, or just a couple on the top or bottom.


And here are the finished legwarmers! :) Sorry I don't have any pictures of them on an actual person... my legs are not camera friendly. Ha ha.




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