Friday, April 8, 2011

Different ways to Cast on and Bind off's

I'm always interested in different ways to cast on and to bind off my knitting projects. Sometimes I need a very loose bind off like at the top of a sock and sometimes it needs to be just decorative. I often do a "crochet provisional" cast on and at the end bind off both the beginning of the knitting and the end of the knitting, this way they both match.

Here is a link to Lucy Neatby's YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3J-sUx_whE

LiatMGat also has a very nice demonstration I can embed here:


The provisional cast on is done with scrap yarn leaving a clever little tail to undo when it will come time to use these live stitches you've made. After you have the number of stitches cast on with your scrap yarn then you will just start knitting with your working yarn and continue your project. When finished you will decide which technique you may want to use for your bind off at the end of the project and you can use this same technique at the beginning of the project. Voila they match.

Now here are a few binding off techniques:
This "crochet bind off" is actually a demonstration on "knooking" which is a weird little crochet-knitting kind of clever. I'm going to modify one of my crochet hooks to be able to do this but I would like to do it in the round. I'll let you know how it goes. Here is a link to "Knooking" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WV3ZkUig048
But I've digressed, the internet is so great for digressing and for a curious sort of person that I am I just jump from one subject to another like monkeys in a tree.

The bind off is actually for this "knooking" but you can see how the "string" is substituted for a needle and it shows very clearly how to do this technique:



This is my default bind off, it's faster for me and efficient way to bind off. I always have crochet hooks around because I use them often.

Here is a demonstration on how to bind off in a knit and purl technique. Like for a ribbing you may have at the top of a sock.




This one is one version on the Crochet Beaded Bind off:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVS6yr43T5Y

And this video is a familiar one I suddenly recognized as I was searching around:



A note about the YouTube video I use


i-cord Cast On