Cabled Poncho: Help on Cutting and Picking Up to Shorten

[bic]

Hi:
After finishing a deliciously complex poncho with cables within cables, I realized it was way too huge. I am planning on cutting about 5-6 inches off each end so the "sleeves" (not really sleeves but the part that covers each arm) will be shorter. This is very scary. I can unravel one side but the other will need cutting and then picking up live stitches on the other.
The cables make this complicated, I think, and difficult. Is basting necessary and how to do that over the cables? How to pick up after cutting?
Any ideas how best to shorten on each side?
Thanks.
--Bic

[Ingrid]

I think your best bet is to thread a piece of yarn through a row just above where you want to cut. Find a ws row where you most likely knit the knits and purled the purls--it would be easier there. After you have your yarn through that row, the live stitches are safe and you can thread your needle through after you pick off the other stitches.

[bic]

Thanks so much!
I have never done this so please forgive stupid questions. So after securing the live stitches, I would cut across a ways below the yarn holding the stitches I want to keep and then pick off stitches back to the safe stitches? Then put live stitches on a needle and join with new yarn to finish off? Does picking off mean just pulling off cut pieces of yarn?

This sound do-able. No basting is required then, just threading a new yarn through last row of stitches to keep?

Two quick questions about the forum--how to "thank" someone and what is the line under my name (says Casting On (?)) and how to change that?

Thanks again!
--Bic

[Ingrid]

You'll have to cut and then pick, because it is difficult to unravel from the bottom up when there are knits and purls in the row, I've found.

So cut and pick.

The Casting-on under your name is kind of like a ranking system. The more posts, the further you are in the sock.

There's a "Thank" button at the bottom of the screen in which you read the posts.