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November 29, 2005

Tubular cast on

My deepest, warmest gratitude to you all, for your support. The encouragement and feedback you give is the best possible motivation to keep working.

I found myself, unexpectedly, with a free afternoon so I’ve seized the opportunity to compose a little tutorial for two of the design elements used in Jemima: the tubular cast on, and a sewn buttonhole. Button loop, to be more accurate. I’ll post the cast on today, with the buttonloop to follow.

Are you sitting comfortably? Then we’ll begin.

1. Using waste yarn (the same weight as your main yarn), cast on half the number of stitches called for in the pattern. If your pattern calls for an odd number of stitches, add 1 and half that number. Change to your main yarn and purl 1 row, knit 1 row. Repeat last two rows.

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2. With WS facing, purl the first stitch. The arrow is pointing to the first stitch of your work, held on waste yarn.

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3. Pick this stitch up on your left needle.

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4. Knit into the back loop of the picked-up stitch.

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5. Purl 1 stitch from left needle. The next stitch to pick up and ktbl is shown with an arrow.

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6. And here it is picked up. Ktbl as per step 4. Repeat steps 5 and 6 to last stitch.

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7. Purl last stitch. There is one more stitch to pick up and ktbl. It hardly looks like a stitch, just a wrap of yarn around the very end of the row. Don’t worry about it too much: as long as you get your needle into that knot, you should be OK.

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8. Ktbl into picked up stitch

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9. Carefully unpick waste yarn to reveal your beautiful tubular cast on. You have your reward.

Posted by Amelia at November 29, 2005 04:21 PM