Alternate Cabled Cast On Method

A Mini Series of Stretchy Cast On Methods

I’ve never been particularly fond of the Cabled Cast On. My stitches always seemed to be too tight or too sloppy after I had gotten 3 or 4 stitches in. Because of that I didn’t expect to like the Alternate Cabled Cast On, but I thought that I should give it a try anyways.

It ended up being my favorite of all the stretchy COs I tried. There was no tail to estimate, the edge is attractive, my stitches didn’t get tight or sloppy like with the regular Cabled CO, and most importantly it was stretchy! My swatch went from 2 inches to 4.5 inches along the cast on edge and it snapped back into shape with no problem. I love it.

There is one downside to this CO method, though. It biases slightly. That doesn’t seem like a big deal to me because the columns of ribbing straighten out after a few row, but I can see how that might be unattractive to some people. The biasing could be a problem on some projects, but I don’t think it would be noticeable on most.

This concludes my little series of stretchy CO methods. Next week I’m going to start looking at stretchy BO methods. I have a list of BOs to work with, but if there are any methods that you’d like to see me try, I’m open to the suggestions!

Posted

August 2, 2011

Knitting

Andi

Tags:

Mini Series, MSCO

Comments

pdxknitterati

August 2, 2011

This is my favorite go-to cast on. I do find there’s a definite right and wrong side, so I have to adjust my knitting instructions to get the side I want to be on the public side.

Thanks for a great series!

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Vanessa

August 3, 2011

I know there’s an alternate to Judy’s Stretchy BO, I’d like to see that. Also EZ’s sewn bind off is supposed to be good for socks as well.

Reply
Amber

August 3, 2011

I would love to see anything that isn’t a sewn bindoff – knitted ones are so much quicker! (But I do realise that sewn ones have their place too.)

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Alternate Cabled Cast On Method

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