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Crossing lines spanning several squares, showing stitches worked out of order.
Also known as: Cable cross, C4F, Crossing lines in a knitting chart
A wide symbol crossing over several squares, drawn as one group passing over another. The picture is literal: the symbol shows which set of stitches crosses in front, which is exactly what makes a cable lean left or right.
A symbol spanning several chart squares showing that a group of stitches is worked out of order, one set held on a cable needle while the other is worked, producing a crossed rope-like column.
One of the few chart symbols that depicts its action directly: the strand drawn on top is the group that crosses in front, and that is what determines whether the cable leans left or right.
Cable knitting is strongly associated with Aran and Guernsey traditions, and the claim that specific cable patterns identified particular families or villages is a twentieth-century marketing story rather than documented practice.
The romantic account — that a drowned fisherman could be identified by his gansey pattern — is widely repeated and not supported by the historical record.
Two groups of diagonal lines crossing over one another across four or more squares of a grid, one group drawn unbroken over the other.