This cast on is basically a series of slip knots placed on your needle. It creates a very elastic edge and is great for the cuffs of socks, mittens, and sleeves plus anywhere else where you want a very stretchy edge. It works especially well with ribbing and adding stitches at the end of a row.
One important point when doing this cast on: you need to get the stitches snugged up close to each other – avoid gaps between the stitches as it will give an untidy looking edge.
Link to video:
My new baby grandson has a small head. This is a family trait, as both his father and paternal grandfather have small heads and this is always an issue when they are picking out new ball caps….
So, I have been making the little guy some smaller hats. I started out by checking on what the “newborn” head measurement is — which my references state is “14 – 15 inches”. I cast on the appropriate number of stitches for the gauge of the worsted weight baby yarn I was using — three rows in and I thought: “Too Big.”
After some experimenting, I got what looked like the right circumference and knit up a beanie type hat — one inch of 2 X 2 ribbing and then straight stockinette until the hat measured 3 1/2 inches. I used the standard K2tog decreasing to form the top of the hat. I guessed correctly, because the hat fit perfectly. The circumference of this first hat was 11.5 inches.
The new parents were impressed and asked me if I could knit up a few more in different colors so that they could use them to coordinate the baby’s outfits. Now, being a new grandma, I said, “Of course!” —
So — I knit 3 more hats — each one only took about 90 minutes to knit up and I varied them a little just so I wouldn’t get too bored with them. The bright green one and the baby blue one were knit using Berat Cottontots yarn and the aqua one was knit using double-stranded Baby Ull (Dale of Norway) washable wool.
BTW — I didn’t get a picture of the first hat — also knit with Bernat Cottentots yarn — but it was baby blue with a bright green stripe.
Last month, the Yarn Harlot posted an article on a pair of identical twin socks that she had made. As those of us who knit with self-striping/self-patterning yarns know, getting a pair of socks that are totally identical is nearly impossible — but this pair turned out to be completely identical. (I was impressed…)
This morning I was putting away my pair of striped socks that I had knit with Paton’s Kroy self-striping sock yarn — and noticed that while I had not gotten a completely identical pair of socks — they were nearly identical — being off only a few rows of striping. So I took a couple of pictures:
How’s that for a pair of twins?
The other day while waiting for my MIL at the beauty shop, I took out my baby blanket and sat knitting in the waiting area. One of the stylists came up to me and asked me what I was knitting. So I showed her. Then she said, “I could never knit anything like that – it’s too complex.” I replied that this pattern was actually very easy – it was just a three different combinations of knit and purl stitches, and I showed her the graph of the pattern square. She then told me that she had once knitted a sweater for her granddaughter that had a color pattern of a frog. So, I told her that if she had done that type of color knitting, this textured pattern would be easy for her to do. She replied that “maybe, she could do it – BUT she didn’t think she’d ever be able to master anything like cables”. So in spite of my gentle encouragement, I’m not certain this knitter will try to knit something with a variety of textures – which is too bad, because she will miss out on some wonderful knitting projects.
Have you ever limited your knitting by such thinking? I know I did many years ago – but after discovering Elizabeth Zimmerman’s approach to “unventing” things, my perspective has changed greatly. I’d like to encourage all my readers to think about this. There is a lot of freedom in being able to take a printed pattern and view it not as something that has to be followed exactly, but more as a place to start something uniquely yours. BTW – if you have never read Elizabeth Zimmerman’s books – you are missing an absolutely fun and enlightening experience!
As I spend time knitting my baby blanket, I find myself marveling at how those two basic stitches – the Knit Stitch and the Purl Stitch – can be combined in endless ways to make up fascinating textures. Consider the sheer simplicity of these two stitches. They are just opposites of each other. Yet these two stitches are knitting up nicely into teddy bear squares surrounded by seed stitch borders. And this project is rather simple. Then consider an Aran sweater pattern as an example of a far more complex combination of textured patterns – but again, the textures are made by the way one combines the basic knit and purl stitches and applies techniques such as cabling. Thus, knitting is both simple and complex and filled with unlimited possibilities of variation and combinations. No wonder we knitters love to knit!
