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Hi. I am Cheryl Brunette and today I am going to introduce you to the Tubular Cast On.
It is stretchy, it is handsome, and it is a very good skill to know.
This is certainly not the only way to do a Tubular Cast On, but it is the way I like to teach it
because you can actually see that you are starting with a tube at the bottom of your knitting. And
today we are going to look at a one by one rib version. You start with what is called "waste yarn,"
and it is waste because you are going to throw it away later or rip it out, and a smooth, contrasting
color to your main yarn is what you are looking for. Notice that this is much lacier than the bulky
that I am using up here. This is actually a DK Cotton weight, and I used it on size ten and a half
needles, and the fact that it was smaller will work to my advantage as you will see later.
So, when you do a one by one rib, and I like to have an odd number of stitches when I do a one
by one rib, because I like to begin and end with a knit. If it is a single piece that isn't going to be
seamed, there is symmetry to that that I like, and if it is going to be seamed, I like to put those
end two stitches, do a mattress stitch that comes up the center of each of them, and it makes a
perfect, little seam that looks like another one of your knits.
So I want, in this piece, I want fifteen stitches to do my knit one, purl one rib.
And you start by casting on with your waste yarn, one half of the stitches that you ultimately
want. Well, I can not cast on seven and a half stitches, so I just up it to eight stitches, and then I
did three rows of the waste yarn. I cast on, you can see my cast on here, and then I knit a row,
purled a row, and knit a row, this is just stockinette stitch. And I wanted to end on this side, a
purl side. You want to begin your main yarn with a purl side.
And I did four rows of stockinette. And four is pretty typically what you use to make your tube.
You are going to take these little four rows and you are going to basically pull them up and make a
tube like that at the bottom of your knitting, that you will eventually turn into knit one, purl one
rib. So I did a purl one, knit one, purl one, knit one row, which leaves me on the purl side. And
now, we are going to form the tube. And you do that by purling the first stitch, and then you go
down here and see these little purl smiles, they are the ones that are facing downward, they are
really easy to see because you have this contrast color.
You go down and pick up the first one, you are entering from behind, so when you bring it up on
the needle you need to knit it through the back of the stitch. So purl one, and go down and get
the next little smile. Right there, lift it, whoops, and knit through the back of that stitch. Purl
one. Pick up the next stitch. It is easiest to pick it up from the top, rather than from
underneath. If you picked it up from underneath you would not have to knit through the back of
the stitch, but this access is so much easier.
Purl one, knit through the back. I am going all the way across this row, because once you get to
the very end, this one is a little bit tricky to pick up. I need a little bit more yarn here. Here's
a purl one. And then, see this last little guy? You have to pull that stitch out a little bit to find the
last little one. Pick that up, I split it but I am going to compensate.
Knit that, and purl one.
And that should give me my fifteen stitches with knit on this side, beginning and ending. And
now all I am going to do is follow the pattern for a knit one, purl one, knit one, purl one as
established. You can see you've got a knit one, purl one, knit one with a little bit of a split stitch,
purl one, knit one, purl one all the way across. And you just make it for the length that you want.
And I already did this sample over here, this one has, I forget how many rows on it. But it has
enough. Let us just say we have done that enough.
It is a regular knit one, purl one rib, and now what are we going to do with this waste yarn?
There is a little tube, do you see it folded over on itself there? Now we are going to remove the
waste yarn, and you have a couple of choices. You can just pull it out, knitters have all kinds of
picky things around, right? So you can just pick it out like this if it is a short one, but if you have
a long piece, it is probably not going to be very comfortable to, or it will be really tedious to pick it
all the way out and the reason it is waste yarn in the first place is you're going to get rid of it. So
you can go ahead- and especially, look how handy this is to have such a thin yarn and such a great
contrasting color, because I can just go in there and cut some of those stitches without cutting my
main yarn. You have to be careful not to cut your main yarn. You know, I have even used braided
fishing line for this. Not with such a heavy yarn, but a finer yarn I have.
And then just pull out those pieces.
And look what you end up with. Whoops, whoops. That last one wrapped around a little bit.
So, you will get it. This is Lamb's Pride bulky, which I love working with Lamb's Pride. I just
do not work with bulky very often. Now look at that edge, look at that. It seems to just
disappear. The knits just flow right around on both sides. It is very elegant.
Here is another sample. I have all these little pieces around here. Here's another example of a one
by one rib, and look at- this was done with a long tail cast on- look at the difference. So it is just
a different look. You see this sometimes in good commercial knitwear. And this, when you pull
it, you have a definite end--that is as far as it is going to pull. This is not really an infinite pull. It
does not want to pull as widely as the stitches that you have, but it just has the right amount of
elegant, kind of grabbing, or pulling together so that it is perfect for the top of a top-down sock.
Or how about if you are making a hat, and you start at the rib that goes around your face and you
go up from there? You do not have the really limited thing that you, the limited edge that you
have here. There you have it.
There must be fifty or more cast ons, but you don't have to know all of them. You just need to
know a handful, so that you can use them for different applications. And the Tubular Cast On,
not only is it handsome and stretchy and all of those things, the other charm of it is that it has an
identical twin, the Tubular Bind Off, that looks exactly like the cast on. And that is what we're
going to look at next episode.
So, until I see you again, be brave. Be brave with these new skills, and enjoy your knitting.
The Tubular Bind off, which is the person-- no it's not a person, it's the skill we're going to meet
next time, which is- okay, let's start again.
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