I Learned a New Cast On

Last week at our monthly knitting get-together at a local Mexican restaurant, Jennifer showed us the socks that she's knitting with the 'Syncopation' pattern.

I thought it would be a great pattern to knit while I'm on vacation. I'm doing it top down so thought a tubular cast-on would be nice. I found a video for casting on straight and modified it for knitting in the round.

First, I cast on half the number of stitched I needed with waste yarn. Any cast-on will do - I used long-tail. Then I divided the stitches for circular knitting and changed to the sock yarn and knit into every waste yarn stitch and then did a yarn over.

Then on the next round, I knit the knit stitches and with the yarn forward, I slipped the yarnovers.

Next round, I slipped the knit stitches with the yarn in the back and purled the yarnovers. Basically, I double knit for the two rounds.

On the next round, I joined the two sets of stitches by knitting the knits and purling the purls and voilà! The tubular knitting is complete. You can snip the waste yarn and pull it out at this stage or leave it until later.

A smooth, stretchy edge is created.

There are other ways to do a tubular 1 x 1 cast on including one where the long-tail cast on is done with knit and purl stitches but I found that one quite fiddly with thin sock yarn and lots of stitches on a long circular. The method I'm using let me really control the stitches on the needle. You could also cast on with a straight needle then knit the first round onto a circular.

To make it 2 x 2 ribbing, you just need to switch the order of the stitches so a knit is beside a knit and a purl is beside a purl creating pairs of stitches. I'll try that on the next sock I knit with 2 x 2 ribbing for the cuff.