I'm working on a cable knit sweater and just noticed I dropped a stitch about 5 rows back. I don't want to frog the entire thing if I can help it. Is there a way to pick it back up without losing progress?
You can absolutely fix a dropped stitch without frogging the whole sweater, and for cable knit specifically it's actually pretty doable since the cables give you some structure to work with. grab a crochet hook (even a size smaller than your needles works) and drop down vertically from where you are now to that dropped stitch, then work your way back up by pulling the loose horizontal strands through the loop one at a time. it takes a minute but honestly it's way faster than ripping out 5 rows of work 🧶
the tricky part with cables is just keeping track of which direction your stitches should be twisted as you pick them back up - you want them facing the same way they were before the drop. take your time looking at the surrounding stitches to see the pattern, and if you mess up the orientation on one or two of them it won't totally ruin things, you'll just see a slight texture difference there. once you've worked back up to your current row, transfer that stitch back onto your needle and keep going.
honestly my best tip is to mark the spot with a stitch marker or even a safety pin once you fix it, then later when you're blocking or seaming you can double-check it looks right. sometimes small imperfections blend way better than you expect once the sweater's finished and worn in a bit. good luck with your cable knit - those are gorgeous when they come out right 💚
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