Casting-On

Hell hath no fury like me casting on. If a knitting pattern leaves the cast-on to me, I’ll use the long tail cast-on method. It’s what I’ve been taught as a child and have used most of my life. I have learned many other cast-on tricks techniques since my elementary school days in Seckenheim, Germany, and I love them all. I have no favorite, the long tail cast-on is just habit. Though I’m willing to be the sheep who follows a suggested cast-on in a pattern blindly. Who am I to question the designer. That’s the little sheep in me, follow the authority.

I cast on with two needles and don’t start with a slip knot. I’m not sure why just about every youtube video or knitting book will start out with a slip knot. There might be a conspiracy. My people are looking into it.

Since I cast-on with two needles I pull every stitch tight, because when I remove one of the needles the stitch has just the right looseness and the stitches stand like soldiers evenly spaced with their neighbors.

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But there is trouble in marianna’s long tail cast-on paradise. I pull pretty hard on those stitches and there is some yarn, actually only three so far, that breaks. The latest is Brooklyn Tweed’s shelter yarn. I think it’s the lack of twist in the yarn. With the long tail cast-on, you are untwisting the yarn that comes from the ball. Every stitch unwinds it a little bit more, in the wrong direction of course. If you’re starting out with low twist yarn, trouble ensues, you end up untwisting the ply. And if you’re working with single ply, you can be in major breakage hell.

I tried being gentle and not pulling too tight, which is very difficult since the motions I make are more reflex than thought out, so it took three cast-ons before the yarn cooperated. That makes me angry. I’m thinking about spinning the yarn again and putting more twist into it, but I guess that probably removes all the qualities the yarn offers. Knitting the yarn poses no problems so far.

For Brooklyn Tweed yarns, shelter and loft, I suggest an alternate cast-on. I wish Jared Flood would actually suggest one suitable for his yarn. I am that way, wanting to be told. I am not into reinventing the wheel by trial and error.

Yesterday I promised news from the good vibrations cowl. Yes, the one that started out venomous and now is a tamed pussycat with lots of goodness. Unfortunately it’s still drying and blocking. But here is a preview. Let’s all agree I didn’t make any mistakes and anything odd is a designer choice. The best news is that I have enough yarn for another one, perhaps I’ll reverse the colors?

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The postal carrier just came to the door with a package. It has the yarn for liana’s sweater and I’m a bit disappointed in the color. It’s not as bright as I was hoping it would be. Actually, it almost duplicates the shelter color you see above in the cast-on.

Included in the order were three skeins of yarn new to me. Not unhappy at all about them. But pictures tomorrow or after the weekend. Because we have tickets to the KVMR Celtic Festival. For a while there I was worried the festival would be smoked out, instead, perfect weather.