Mega Knitting ~ Basic Casting Off

To complete the Fibre Arts Bootcamp mini-series on Mega knitting basics, we need to look at casting off and once again the hooked needles make the process much faster and smoother when working with chunky art yarns.

Since we only have a single stitch on the needle at any one time, we can dispense with one of the 22 inch Mega hooks and use one of our little ‘stubby’ needles instead.  This makes life so much easier.  While we were recording this short video, David even commented about the Mega knitting hooks clattering on the table top and these aren’t the

longest of the knitting hooks on the shelf.  I’ve had several near misses with cups of tea or a glass of wine (tragedy!) as three feet of solid birch bounces around either side of my elbows – so beware!

Also known as ‘binding off,’ mostly in North America I believe, casting off should provide both the look that is most suited to the rest of the project, as well as the right feel.  The standard cast-off or bind-off should be suitable for most of your requirements, but occasionally, you might want something that’s a little fancier or perhaps more elastic.  Socks for instance, cannot afford to have  tight edges, so there are one or two techniques that are more suitable where elasticity is desired.  I will cover these at another time.  For now, I just want to complete the basics. Hmmmm….. here’s a thought: Mega knitted socks don’t sound very practical, but what about felting Mega knitted socks as bootliners or slippers?  I’ll let you know!

On a slightly different note, I know that we haven’t run any fibre arts workshops recently, but we haven’t forgotten about them.  In fact, they will be commencing once more on the

8^th of August.  We will be running them at the old Kingfisher school whilst we continue to seek alternative premises for FAB as well as Llamas in the Raw, which is overflowing with llamas!  We will also be exhibiting at the Enderby Arts Festival this weekend, offering hands-on experience of carding art batts, picking and free-form crochet.

 

So back to business – before we move onto the more advanced and  interesting stuff, here’s the last in the video tutorial series on Mega knitting basics:

To see the FAB range of mega knitting hooks, visit our store