#jmco

[ub-sessed]

I'm knitting this little strawberry to go with my tomato pincushion hat:

Strawberry pattern by Linda Dawkins

I have been wanting to knit a little strawberry for ages!

The first line of the pattern is "Cast on 4 stitches and join for knitting in the round." I am wondering which CO to use. I'm thinking maybe Judy's Magic Cast On because it's kind of like a tiny toe-up sock?

[ub-sessed]

Garter tab breakthrough: knitting JMCO from the purl side

Tl;dr: After about 10 attempts at knitting the garter tab cast on, I finally discovered that if I use Judy's Magic Cast On and then start my garter stitch on the purl side, I end up with garter ridges that are actually tidy and alternate purl/knit properly.

Blah blah and more photos below the cut:

So I've never knit a shawl before because I don't wear shawls, but I wanted a bandana to wear at work in the winter, and I was way more attracted to the shawl patterns than the bandana patterns I found, so I figured it wouldn't be hard to just make a mini shawl and call it a bandana.

I knit a few swatches and figured out what adjustments I wanted for the bandana, but I just could not get the garter tab to look right. I tried the long tail cast on, the Turkish CO, Judy's Magic CO, all sorts of things. With a regular cast on, the picked up row would always be a mess, and with the provisional cast ons, there would always be a gap where there were two knit rows or two purl rows next to each other. I watched so many videos and read so many articles, and I couldn't figure out what I was missing. I began to suspect that it was not me who was missing something.

Stephen West, in his garter tab tutorial, says of picking up stitches from the CO: "There's no rules for this. Just get any three strands of yarn." And it occurred to me: Most shawls are quite large, knit with relatively fine yarn, and the garter tab is a tiny thing that gets lost behind your neck. Maybe people just don't care that much how it looks.

But I am knitting my bandana with DK, and the garter tab is going to be smack dab in the middle of my forehead. Any irregularities will be glaring.

Now, the yarn I'm working with is Bernat Softee Baby, which while it's very soft and pretty, is awful to work with: it splits like crazy, and is such a messy yarn that it can be hard to see what's happening. On top of that I'm knitting at a fairly tight gauge because I want a relatively stiff fabric. So when I looked at my many garter tab swatches, it was hard to see what was actually going on. So I decided to do a few experiments using a familiar aran yarn and much larger needles.

SWATCH #1: Long tail cast on

Immediately after doing my LTCO, I ran my Clover Circular Stitch Holder through the stitches so that I could be sure that I was picking up the right stitches. As you can see, this cast on creates a gap that has a couple random stitches in it.

SWATCH #2: Needle and hook crochet provisional CO

I followed instructions from Tin Can Knits, but even on my second attempt I had a really hard time picking up my provisional stitches. So I don't know if I did it right, but I ended up with what looks like a gap created by two knit rows next to each other, which is not what we want in garter stitch.

SWATCH #3: Judy's Magic Cast On (traditional)

Laura Nelkin has a great video on how to do this. But as is only logical, it results in two purl rows next to each other.

SWATCH #4: JMCO knit from the purl side

With JMCO, after you've cast on your stitches, you rotate your needles around soon that they're pointing to the right and start knitting. But what if you also flipped the whole thing over so that the purl stitches are facing you?

In the photo above, it looks like I have ended up with the same problem of two purl rows next to each other, but when I looked more carefully, I saw that there was a knit row between them, it was just tiny. I realized: Traditionally, when you start knitting into your JMCO, you're knitting into the stitch that was just cast on. But the way I was flipping things, that stitch was sitting on the needle cable, with nothing to keep it at the right size.

SWATCH #5: JMCO knit from the purl side more carefully

This time I carefully crossed my tail over the working yarn to hold the stitch at the right size before pulling my working needle out of the cast on stitches.

I found this much easier using a grippy needle and knitting Norwegian. I'm knitting the actual bandana on metal needles, but to get this cast on to work with the Softee Baby, I had to do the cast on with wooden needles.

I have no idea if this would work with other provisional cast ons. I'm just thrilled that I managed to puzzle it out, and that after months of swatching, I have finally started on the actual bandana!

[zsuzska972]

Szemek felszedése bal- és jobbkezes verz. / Judy's magic cast on (right ...

[ub-sessed]

Knitting a swatch to practise Judy's Magic Cast On and the Kitchener graft

I wanted to use 2 circs so I put one tip on each cord for the cast on:

Then before I worked the first row I moved the second tip to the top needle. I was worried this would be hard to do while holding that last stitch in place, but it was OK!

In the past when I have tried JMCO it was always for knitting in the round, i.e. I had to twist it around and join it in the round, which I found IMPOSSIBLE. But knitting it straight across was no problem!

[lphaneuf]

Liked the sock so much had to cast on another. Modifications? I meant to reduce from 48 to 44 stitches but CO wrong. This is 40 stitches with DK weight yarn. So far so good.

[sofialista]

I'm trying Jimmy Choo in the snow in Copenhagen #FashionWeek #CHPFW #Luxury #JMCO (på/i Den Franske Ambassade)

[kevest]

Day 4: Letter to your best friend.

Dear Asshole,

First off, sorry for calling you an asshole, but you really are an asshole most of the time.

I don't want to speak about too much about the past or how we met or anything like that. I'd rather just talk about how we are right now and what you mean to me. Honestly, I cannot picture a day in my life from now on without talking to you in one way or another. I just wouldn't feel like my day is complete without having you in it in some way. That's really gratifying and scary at the same time. Gratifying because I feel so blessed to have someone like you in my life that could complete my day with a simple phone call or a couple of texts. Scary because your face is really scary. JUST KIDDING. It's scary because if we were to stop being best friends, I don't know how I would adjust.

We really haven't been friends for too long. Shit, I haven't even really known you for too long. What's 2 years to a lifetime? Not much. But I have complete faith that you and I are going to be friends for a lifetime. You don't come across those kinds of people very often in life. There are a handful of these particular individuals I know now and you are one of them. Our friendship isn't ideal or the textbook definition of what a best friendship should be, but it all works out at the end of the day. We are so different in so many ways. You're white, I'm brown. I'm nice/sweet/forgiving/perfect, you're a dick. I don't know how or why, but we just work. Yes, we fight over stupid things. Yes, we make things more difficult than they should be. But at the end of the day, we still love one another.

You have been everything I've needed in a best friend. You're there when I'm down and I need words of encouragement. You're there when I need a laugh. That's really easy because I could just look up a picture of you on Facebook and start laughing. You're there when I've messed up and I need someone to tell me the truth without sugarcoating anything. You've just been there for me whenever I've needed you. I know I could depend on our friendship no matter what. Thank you so much for everything. I look forward to a lifetime of bestfriendship with you. It's going to be a bumpy ride, but I wouldn't want anyone but you to be there with me. I love you too much, you little goon.

                                                                         Forever, KE.

P.S. It's 5:05AM. You owe me sleep.