Knitting in the Shadows: Playing with three needles

As you may recall, last night was the night we planned to start the sewing up and other finishing games for Must Have. Amazingly enough, the planned event actually occurred! (Yes, there were a couple of hours there where there was some doubt, but in the end... it all worked out more or less as planned.)

This meant that we started with a little lesson in short rowing shoulder shaping. Why? Well, because we wanted to do that magic three-needle bind off thing for the shoulders, and if you go around casting off stitches (as the instructions suggest), well,there just aren't any live stitches to bind off with, are there?

So...I explained how they worked, and tried to give useful verbal instructions while counting my own stitches. It was... a tad cumbersome, but in the end, four shoulders got seamed with three-needle bind-offs. Here's one, done,

(Ignore the colors here, the lighting was ... whacked)
And here is one all ready for the two-needle variation of the three-needle bind off.

To be sure, it still needs three needles for a while, but working it is much easier -- First you slip stitches from the two relevant needles to a third (one from the front, one from the back, repeat), and then you work k2tog, k2tog, bind-off, instead of slipping a needle through two stitches, each of which is on a different needle. That looks something like this:

What? that's not Must Have? I know that... and you'll see more of that in a minute. But first... here's Must Have with her shoulders finished, all ready for the great picking up of the button band!

Why yes, I was saying "Ta Da!" when the DTB Elizabeth took that photo. Why do you ask?

and just for the record, here she is with all those stitches picked up.

And here's a closer look

If it looks to you like I picked up every stitch, you're probably right. It turns out that my stitch gauge, in the 2x2 rib, on the smaller needles is VERY close to my row gauge in stockinette on the larger needles. (11 st in 2" vs 12 st in 2 in). I skipped one row after every 11 that I picked up on that edge.
During the process, I had a cable break (sigh), but am hoping to get by with the temp fix I did until I've worked the 6 rows or so involved in the button band.

This afternoon, I'll double check my counts before proceeding.

Meanwhile, I've cast on another thing. This time it's a hoodie for Kitty. We're doing a hem (or possibly a drawstring casing, if she decides she wants a drawstring). That means that I'm still playing with three needles!... just not binding off.

I started with a provisional cast on (still thanking the wonderful Judy for hers), and knit up half the distance on one needle, then switched up a size to knit up the other half.

Now I'm working the live stitches together with the provisional edge. It looks pretty funny in the middle of the row...

But the process is very much like a three needle bind off (only since I'm not binding off, I have to do it in purl, since the time is right on the wrong side.). All that's missing is the passing the first stitch over the second one part.

Step One, insert needle through the first stitch on the needle for both needles...

Step 2: wrap the yarn around the needle, and pull through BOTH stitches.

And voila... pretty hem!

Next up for this one... putting the pretty that she wants on the back into a chart I can actually READ. We've found one, but it's not charted in a way that mere humans like me can follow. I am not going to enjoy plugging this all in by hand... but..... I must be a glutton for punishment.

There won't be much progress tonight though -- I have a board meeting to attend, and it looks to be one at which I'll be very involved. Even mindless knitting may not be in the game.