COUNTRYWOOL

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in hudson, ny

 Claudia Krisniski
 59 Spring Road Hudson NY 12534
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this page last updated: June 22, 2004

Channel Island Cast On

In the interest of expanding the knowledge of this technique, I am taking the time to explain it here for the cyber knitting community.

Let me preface the directions by saying that this nicely knotted edge was first illustrated for me in Beth Brown-Reinsel's book KNITTING GANSEYS, and reinforced when I took a class from Beth. She is a fabulous teacher, and her book is a wonderful companion to those of us who embark on making a gansey from scratch.

Start by measuring a length of yarn twice as long as you will need for casting on the edge. My method: wind the yarn around the needle loosely 10 times...this length will do for 10 stitches. Measure that length, hand over hand, doubling it (20 sts), tripling it (30 sts), etc,  until you reach the number of stitches just over what you need to cast on. Then DOUBLE the ENTIRE length of yarn in your hand. At this point, bring the cut end into your hand also, and make a slip knot with both strands of yarn, 6" from the cut end.

In this sample, we are looking for a 65 stitch edge:

 Place the slip knot on a needle.

Treat the doubled strand of yarn emanating from the slip knot as one yarn. It is labeled A.  The single yarn is B.

Now, arrange yarns A and B over your fingers as shown: (note the 6" tail is not shown, but it emanates from the slip knot, too.). Note that the doubled yarn is wound around counterclockwise (opposite of long-tail cast on)

Now, work a yarn over AND a regular longtail cast on in sequence. This makes 2 stitches each time.
*...swing the tip of the needle under then over B...
...bring that loop back down to A...
...swing the tip of the needle under BOTH doubled strands of A and scoop up through these yarns on the thumb...
...swing over the top of yarn B at B, catching a loop of B on the tip of the needle
.....bring B back through the doubled yarn loop on the thumb...
release the doubled loops, slide them off the thumb and tighten them carefully down on the needle*

Set the yarns up in your hand again, and repeat **

A bump AND a smooth stitch has been made each time. The first slip knot makes only one bump. If you need an even number of stitches, you can knit into each strand of the bump.

You are looking at the Channel Island cast on edges of the front and back welts of JR'S GANSEY,
a free pattern being written for the cybercrowd by moi!
Click for free pattern !