Knitting Lesson # 3

Casting off stitches.  There are sooo many different ways to do this!!!  How does one decide which is best if it's not mentioned in the pattern?  Beats me, I know how to do three of them. 

1. I call it Simple Castoff.  Proper name for it might be something else, but.......  I knit (or purl) the first two stitches, then slip the first off the needle by passing over the top of second.  Knit one more, slip the previous stitch over the new stitch, and so on until I have no stitches left, then tie off that last one.
2. No name, but....... knit (or purl) the first two stitches together, slip it back on to other needle, knit that slipped stitch together with the next one, slip it back to the other needle, etc. to the last stitch and tie that one off.
3. Finally, the three needle bind off when I'm attaching two pieces together.  Both pieces are on their own needles, held together with the points of those needles facing the same way, then I use a slightly larger sized needle to knit first stitch from each of the pieces together, knit the next stitch from both needles together, then slip the first "stitched together" stitch over the top of the second "stitched together" until the last stitch.  Knit those together and tie off.

This knitting stuff is getting complicated!!  lol  With crochet, there's only one live stitch at a time to deal with.  The rows are "finished" with each stitch completed, only needing to tie off the very last one.castoff too tight

On to the jacket I'm making.  I finished my big V shaping for the center back area, and needed to cast those stitches off before moving onto the sleeve sections.  Which castoff to use?  The pattern didn't specify any one particular over the other, so.........I decided on my "Simple Castoff" because I knew that later in the pattern I would "attaching" new sections to the sides of the V, and didn't want a big bulky seam right there.

Since I learned how to do the "Wrap and Turn" while doing this V shaping, and all 66 stitches were still on my needles when I got the point of the V, I was very glad that I had this going on circular needles rather than straight sticks!  Otherwise I'm thinking I probably would have had myself another mess trying to keep them all on, what with the shape of the V and all!  The circulars don't care what geometric shape you have going on.  It's flexible, not rigid.  That cable bends in so many different ways at the same time I'm surprised I don't get myself all origami-ed into it!  And that's even after doing castoff just right :-)the hot water treatment to the cable to get the "package bends" out.

So I did my 66 stitches worth of casting off.  Did I remember to use a slightly larger needle for making those castoff stitches?  No.  Even with making sure I did the casting off loosely, it still seemed a bit too tight for me, as the fabric didn't lay truly flat when I was done.  As you can (maybe!) see in the above  picture, my point is bent, and there are wrinkles on the right side of the fabric.

Back to the beginning of the cast off by "tink"-ing.  (notice that tink spelled backwards is "knit"?)  I had to dig in the back of my supply closet to find where I had hidden stashed my other needles to find a bigger sized one to use.  This time it was a success!  The stitches are cast off, the piece lays flat!  Hurray!  I didn't loose even one! 

All done thought I.  But then I got to looking at it some more.  When I did the "wrap and turns", the wrapped stitches stretched a bit while doing the V shaping.  In the youtube video I watched to learn how to do the wrap and turn, the lady was doing heel turning for socks, and when she got to the wrapped stitch, she picked up both the wrap and the stitch to knit them together.   Now I'm wondering if I should have done the same.  Bet you can guess what I'm going to do now, can't you?  ;D

castoff stitch without the wrap caught up in castoffboth stitch AND wrap caught up in cast-off

Have a good day!  :D