Knitting Cast On Video

Since I’ve been working on socks and cowls, I’ve been in search for a cast on that will leave me with a nice elastic beginning edge.  I finally tried the “Old Norwegian” aka “German Twisted” cast on.  I mentioned last week that I may make a video demonstrating it.  I had time to get a video together.  While it’s only 5 or 6 minutes long, it took a huge chunk out of my Sunday.   

I really like this cast on.  I resisted trying it for quite a while.  It looks difficult to remember and fiddly.  I was really surprised how much I liked the results.  It’s quite elastic and has a nice finished look.  It’s thick too, so it should wear well.  It looks a lot more complicated than it really is.  It’s simply a “long Tail” cast on with an additional twist.  That extra twist places more yarn between the stitches that allow it to stretch and return.  There are a number of videos that demonstrate it.  Some have a lot of talking, some show extra steps that make it look even more complicated, but a few of them are great.  I decided to make one of my own.

There is no talking on my videos, and only a small amount if captioning, so I’ll go over the steps quickly here:

Pull out a long tail to accommodate your stitch count.  Everyone and every yarn is different, but a good place to start is to wrap the yarn around the needle loosely 5 times, double the length and use this length for every 10 stitches you plan to cast on.

Either create a slip-knot, or twist a loop on the needle according to your preference.

Make a sling shot with the yarn, with the tail running over your thumb and into your hand, and the yarn from the ball running over your index finger and into your hand, add your needle.

Pass the needle under both the yarns coming from the thumb, then plunge the needle down into the “V” that is made at the thumb, twist the needle up towards the index finger and grab this yarn with the needle from right to left, and pull this new loop through the thumb loop.

Pull out the slack from the yarn and gently snug up the stitch.

I prefer to use a loop rather than a slip-knot for my first stitch.  Since I try to avoid a knot in my knitting for the rest of the project, it makes little sense to me to begin my first stitch by creating one.  Happy Knitting.

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