Tonight at our stitch-in, we had a FREE CLINIC on knitting a circular scrubby. The project only has 18 stitches and the reason why I'm writing about this is because of how one customer was casting on which happened to be not one of my favorites.
We all know that there are a ga-zillion ways of casting on, but my favorite is the long-tail (or otherwise known as the sling shot cast on.) Did you know that if you are doing this cast on, that the short end MUST be on the left? If you have been casting on with the tail on the right, and you had enough yarn to cast on, then, boy you were lucky...or you had a LOT of yarn to cast on with.
The reason why the short end MUST be on the left side is that when you have the yarn coming from the ball on the right, it takes up much more yarn than the left side. So...what's the formula for casting on: worsted weight yarn normally takes up 1 inch per stitch. Lighter weight yarns are going to take up less and heavier yarns take up more. What I like to do is measure how much 5 stitches takes up, and then do the math.
Oh, by the way....if you are casting on tooooo tightly, you have options: you can cast on with a larger needle OR you can cast on with 2 needles held together and cast on tightly. Then pull out one needle and all the stitches will be even. Either way is fine.
The same holds true for binding off. I have seen a lot of projects where the bind off is way too tight. So, if you have trouble binding off loosely, then switch to a larger needle when it comes time to bind off.
It's always fun starting a new project, and it's even more thrilling to finish it!
Cast on and bind off, my friends!!
Happy Stitching!!!
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Thanks again, Ginny. It is always difficult for me to judge how much yarn to leave for the "tail," and I am thrilled when I get it right. Since I am left-handed, this should be easy for me to remember.
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