Choose the Right Cast On For Your Knitting Project

Hi, this is Jill Wright from The Knitting Circle. Have you ever wondered which cast on to use? You know several, how do you know which one will work best for the project that you're working on? Let me help you. Here we go.

Tips and tricks to choose the right cast on for your knitting project. Okay. Here we go. Think of your project. You wanna think about its function, its end use.

What kind of cast on do you think it will need? Because there are tons of different kinds of casts on for different situations. Now, if you're looking for something with structure and stability and less stretch, you wanna go for something like the cable cast on. Right here. It's a very simple one.

It's probably one of the first ones that you will learn. It's very neat. It looks almost rope like. It looks good from both sides. And you're gonna wanna use this kind of cast on for something like a bag, top-down or bottom-up, where the knit fabric throughout, it is kind of firmer in general.

You could also use it at the shoulder of a top-town sweater restructure. So your shoulder seam stays the correct length and doesn't stretch out over your shoulders. So let's say top-down. Some kind of jacket sweater top that's more structured. You could use it for the waistband cast on of a top-down skirt.

And especially if it's a wrap around. So it's not gonna slip down over your hips. You can also use it for the neck line of a top-down sweater, so that it's not gonna slide out over your shoulders. But you need to make sure with this one that the cast on number, the count, will fit over your head, because you want to be able to wear your sweater when you're done. Now, if you wanna slightly increase the stretch of this cast on, then go ahead and use a larger needle with the cast on only, and then switch to the regular size needle after you've cast on.

If you're looking for something more stretchy, more elastic, let's take a look at the long tail. Longtail cast on. You start off with two strands instead of one. And this cast on, it's very stretchy, it looks good from both sides. And with this one, you are also, as well as you cast on, you're working purl row at the same time.

So this is a wrong side cast on. But it looks great, it works great for socks, hats, mittens and gloves at the cuff. If your working those from the cuff up. Sweaters with narrower neck lines like a turtleneck, where you need plenty of stretch to get that over your head, and for sideways work tops. It works great because the stretch can go vertically.

So that's the longtail. If you're looking for something decorative, how about the Pico. Pico means that it's got little bumps. And those bumps are formed by casting on more stitches and binding them off as you cast on. This is great for bottom-up projects if you want a little bit of interest at the bottom.

Around the hem, it also is good, if you're working top-down baby things for the interest at the neck line. All right, if you're working with more than one color, you may wish to start off with something like the two-color braided cast on. This looks almost like the cable cast on, but you've got alternating colors on the way across. It looks good from both sides, and it's a nice way to start out something where you have more than one color within your knitting work. Now, you may want to try the tubular cast on.

This, it actually looks really professional. It looks almost like a manufactured sweater. It looks good from both sides. It's pretty straightforward to do. It's good for hats, socks, cuffs of any sort.

It has a pretty good deal of stretch. It starts off looking like a tube and then you start to work it in one by one rib. You might wanna try that one. Now here we have a provisional cast on. This is a crochet chain cast on.

And if I was to undo this, we would have live stitches on there that we could pick up and work the other way. So if I pull on this, a stitch pops out. So we can pick up that stitch onto the needle and start working off the opposite way. So the provisional cast on is used when you want to work from the center out in a shawl or a scarf. Now the stitches are kind of half stitch offset.

Because if you're working one way to the start, your stitches are gonna be half a stitch off set. So don't forget to pick out an extra one if you want the exact same number. Or you could put some kind of panel in between. You can also use the provisional cast on if you want to add a border later. So if you want to do something like a big old shawl with a fancy border on it and you don't want to seem, because that wouldn't look nearly so good, use a provisional cast on.

Shawls, panels, counterpanes are great with the provisional cast on. Now, there's also a couple more that I don't have samples of. There's a double-sided, which worked for toe-up socks. Which just looks like a fold in stockinette stitch. And there's no loops or holes at the sides.

And then you can continue working circularly. And another one's circular, if you're working at top-down hat or a circle shawl, and you wanna start off with a circle, start out from the center and workout. And the last one, a moebius. A moebius has a half twist in a loop and it goes all the way around. But you only actually working on one edge, and it works out from the center.

It's real clever. So there's some ideas for some cast ons and hopefully you'll think about the purpose of your end product so you'll be able to figure out the correct cast on. Good luck. Hopefully I've made it easier for you to decide which cast on you should use for your project. Good luck for your next one.

Thanks for watching. And don't forget to check out our other knitting videos on the website.