Knitting in the Shadows

In Which I Threaten, but Do Not Provide, A Tutorial

I learned a new skill today!

I know I've plugged Judy's Magic Cast On many times.  (oops, there we go, I did it again).  But today, that cast on was the wrong answer. sort of.

Why?

Well, Judy's Magic Cast On leaves one with what looks very like a lovely purl bump at the back of your knitting (on the wrong side, where most folks want it).  Today, however, I needed that "purl bump" to show up on the front of my knitting.  Generally, that's easy, since generally you cast on starting with zero stitches, and you can thus sort of arbitrarily declare either side to be the right side.  Have you ever known the "generally" to really apply to me or my knitting? Me either.

This particular provisional cast on needed to come at the end of a row of knitting.  It needed to match that row.  Thus, it needed to have the "purl bumps" on the opposite side of the knitting.  Armed with Judy's Magic Cast On, I figured out how to do it backwards... and lo' there is a "purl bump" right where I want it to be!

I was so tickled I decided to do a little tutorial.  But, alas, I only learned ONE new skill today.  I have clearly not mastered the skill of holding the camera in my left hand to take pictures that show what I wanted to show.  Nor have I mastered the skill of placing the camera somewhere that I can shoot a decent video of my own hands.

I'm pretending that this means I'll actually produce a better tutorial, since I'll be using yarn and needles chosen for their visibilty, and not just using the yarn that happens to be on the needles.

A Tutorial, because someone asked

So... I was  posting away on the Ravelry group for Seasons of Lace, discussing the Emily Dickinson shawl that we're doing over there as a KAL, and I remarked that I'd opted for the two-end cast on to address the 545 stitch cast on that the shawl requires.  Someone responded by asking what that was.

Uh oh -- clearly, it's time for me to do another wee little tutorial.  I'll refrain from using the yarn I'm using for the Emily Dickinson (which, by the way, I'm calling Inebriate of Air after a line in one of her poems), because it's so fine you wouldn't see a thing.  See:

Instead, I've grabbed some random yarn to show you with (That's a lie.  This yarn will soon become Kitty's very own Emily Dickinson shawl, because she's playing too. (Anyone want to wager on whether I can pull a trifecta and persuade Bookworm to join us? She does knit, sort of)).

These instructions assume that you have either a ball of yarn that has been wound in such a way that you can lay your hands on both ends at once, or that you've got two balls of yarn.

Take the two ends of your ball of yarn,

and tie them together with a small, fairly loose knot, leaving enough yarn dangling to weave in later.

A slip knot is fine, but not required.

Loop that join over your needle, so that you've got one strand falling to the front, and one falling to the back.  If you've used two ends of the same ball, be sure that the one coming over the back is the one that comes from the center of the ball. Hold the tails under your finger so no confusion can develop.

Begin working the long tail cast on (or whichever two-strand cast-on you prefer) with the two strands of yarn. 

For those of you who are unfamiliar with this work horse, it goes like this:

Start with that loop above, or with a slip knot snugly but not tightly placed on a needle with the end draped over the back of the needle attached to the ball of yarn (center pull where you can), and the end draped over the front being long enough to make the number of stitches you'll need.  This requires guess work (hence the two-end version for large numbers of stitches), but about one inch per stitch works as a guesstimator if you're working in worsted weight yarn.

Make a pinching gesture with your left fore-finger and thumb, holding them so that they point to the right, with your pinky finger down, and the thumb/finger combo up:

Holding a needle with the yarn draped over it in your right hand, slip your finger and thumb together between the strands:

and open them, grasping the dangling ends of the yarn under your middle, ring, and pinky fingers gently: firmly enough that they don't fall out, but not so tightly that they can't slide through.

Bring your right hand down so that the arrangement looks rather like a sling shot:

Now, you're set to start making stitches!

Slide the point of the needle up your thumb and under the strand of yarn that is wrapped around it:

Then take the point of the needle over the strand coming off your index finger

  

And back through the loop around your thumb (going back out the way you came in).

 

Then, release the loop over your thumb,

And hook your thumb through the yarn strand,

snugging up the stitch on the needle

And, because I'm so impressed with myself, I'll show you that again, only in VIDEO...

Cast on merrily forever  :-)  But when you're counting stitches, it's important to remember that for the 2-end version, it's important that you  NOT count that first strand (the one with the knot, or with the two-stranded slip-knot) as a stitch when you start your first real row. 

When you get to the end of the cast on, it'll be something like this:

When you start the first row, you'll want to drop one strand (me, I carefully determine which end is going to the inside of the ball,  and drop other end, because I prefer working from a center pull ball), 

and cut it, leaving a long enough tail to weave in. 

When you've worked a few rows, you can untie the knot and weave in all three ends.... or.... leave that til the end of the project, when you'll be weaving ends in anyway.

Step by Step through the Pocket...

It's time for a little more pocket work.

When last we spoke, we were doing a bit of double knitting.  As we progress, we soon discover some of the fun of double-knitting.  Here we see the point when we can truly tell that we've actually made a double layer of fabric.  At this point, a tube....

It's big enough to put my finger in...

Tee hee...

So, soon, after another inch of double-knitting we come to the point where we wonder whether doing things this way is any thing more than a parlor trick.  And frankly, at this point for this type of pocket -- no, it's not. For other types of pockets.... it IS worth it.  But for this one... not so much. The value here comes with the firm start we got with casting on and then increasing to the full needed width.  That value has been accomplished. So we'll cheat for a faster pocket completion.

On my next row, I'll work one stitch, and just slip the next one off the needle ....

If you've got slippery or uncooperative yarn (unlike my lovely Galway, which is staying right where I put it), you might want to grab a second needle, and instead of slipping the alternate stitches off into the breeze, you can slip them onto the second needle.  Work and slip all the way to end of the needle, and you'll find yourself with this:

Next step for the cheat.... put those stitches the other end of your happy circular needle.

If you made a mistake, when you open the tube, you may find something horrid like this:

This kind of mistake is the bad kind.  This means that somewhere, I turned around and started working stitches instead of slipping them.  If it were two strands going across -- it would mean that I'd forgotten to get the yarn between the two sides when slipping.  I could fix that by dropping a stitch down and do a little adjusting.  In this case... I have to rip back a couple of rows.  Oh well.  It gives me a chance to show you what the bad thing looks like.

For the pocket cheat, you just go ahead and work back and forth until your pocket is the size you want it to be.

Piece of cake.  With one caveat -- for awhile, you'll work with a little magic-loop action around the end of the pocket...

but eventually it will be easy to skip that part.  Before you skip that part, be sure to put a marker in.

When you've reached your stopping point, you'll want to do a three-needle bind off -- from the center of the row out. I prefer to do mine with the knit sides facing.

Then, you have a choice to make.  No matter what we do, the pocket lining is going to show at some point.  .. So, do you want the knit side to show?

Or the purl side to show.

I've decided that I want the knit side to show.  All that remains is sewing in the new pocket.  We'll do that tomorrow -- when there's day light to take pictures with.

Knitting a Pocket -- the double knit version for a side pocket

Okay Elizabeth, it looks like I'm adding in a side seam pocket.  You just had to put that idea in my head, didn't you?  And I came so close to knitting Must Have with only minor bust-row dart modifications!  But it's clearly pocket time in Shadowland.

There are a couple of ways to do it. 

I could just knit a square, and then sew it in ... bottom edge along the top of the ribbing, one side in the appropriate place on the sweater front, and then the other side craftily into the side seam.  But that's a pocket that will pull against the smooth line of the front of the sweater.  It'll be obvious.  Nobody wants an obvious pocket.  If I wanted an obvious pocket, I'd just sew a patch pocket on the front and be done with it.  (Heck, I could be almost subtle and knit up a patch that had the same cable pattern as the front, and sew that on -- it might even look like I meant it). But I don't want a patch pocket.

I want a subtle pocket.  That means I'll be knitting the whole pocket, and slipping it into the side seam (why else did I forgo finishing the sewing up on the sides??). This means that where the pocket sits, there will be three layers of fabric, not just two. 

Now, I could just knit a big rectangle, fold it in half and sew up two of the edges and then insert the last open side into the side of my sweater.  But the fold won't be a strong as a cast on edge, and will b bulkier than you want it to be.  Not only that, but it makes for one extra bit of seam to sew.

Besides, it's not classy.  And since my public not only deserves classy, but has asked for a bit of double knitting, I'll double knit this one.

Step one... cast on for the pocket.  Me, I cast on forty stitches.  It was pretty arbitrary.

Step two, work the set up row by purling into the front and back of every stitch.  (whoof, 80 stitches!)

Step three, start the double knitting.... 

Now, there are two ways to do this too. One uses one strand of yarn, the other uses two strands.

The simplest way to do it for this pocket uses one strand. And frankly, there are no benefits to using a second strand, because doing so creates an added complication to keeping one side closed.  Thus... for this lesson, we're using one strand of yarn.

So I've got a bunch of stitches on the needle... Half of them will be "front" stitches, and the other half will be "back" stitches.

__F-B_F-B_F-B_F-B_F-B_F-B_F-B_F-B_F-B_F-B_F-B_F-B_F-B_F-B_F-B____

For the "right side" row, I'm going to knit the front stitches only, and then on the "wrong side" row, I'll work only the back stitches.  To get that done, it will go like this:

Row 1: (sl 1 with yarn in front, knit one) repeat.  (That slips the back stitches, and works the front stitches, making sure that the yarn runs between the layers of the fabric)

Row two will be equally simple... but you have to decide whether you want a purl side showing or a knit side showing on the back.  For a knit side showing, just repeat Row 1!  (How easy is that?) 

For a purl side showing do this:

Row 2: (sl 1 with yarn in front, purl one) repeat (This time, it slips the front stitches, and works the back stitches, leaving you with a fabric that is double thickness, but invisibly so, since looks like a regular stockinette fabric.)

There, that wasn't so hard, was it?

But wait!  If we do it this way, we'll have a lovely  double thick piece of fabric -- with two closed sides!  That's fine if  want to stuff it for a pillow or something, but for a pocket you'd have to turn the piece on it's side, and use what is now the top as the side of the pocket into which one slips ones hand.  But what if you wanted the SIDE to be the entrance to the pocket?  A side entrance would give you a nice firm bottom edge.  (Not to mention a one-to-one ratio for sewing up the seam).'  So... I at least  want one side of this square to be open while the other side is closed.  There is a way to do that.

Let's go with the knit side out option for both sides.  Rows 1 and 2 stay the same.  Rows 3 and 4 have to be different.

Row 1: (sl 1 with yarn in front, knit one) repeat.
Row 2: (sl 1 with yarn in front, knit one) repeat.  (or, if you're going for the purl look, sl1, p1)
Row 3: (p1, sl 1 with yarn in back) repeat.   (or, if you're going for the purl look, k1, sl1)
Row 4: (p1, sl 1 with yarn in back) repeat. 

Repeat these four rows until your pocket is large enough and you'll have the open side to work with..  To finish...

Last Row:  k2tog across, then bind off.

Voila!  A pocket with one side open!  Make another, and then we'll look at slipping them into the side seams of the sweater.  I'll be back when I have two pockets ready to "install".

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.