Kind of need a knitting icon

[jamethiel]

I have a question. I'm getting seriously into lace knitting: I'm currently knitting the haruha scarf (v easy) and I'm thinking about trying a slightly more challenging lacy shawl.

I was clicking around on links today when I found this, which is a fabulous review of cast on techniques for lace. While I have observed for myself that your standard cast off/on is sometimes too tight for the airy-ness of lace and can lead to some... strange shapes in the finished piece, my question is this.

Invisible cast-ons leave live stitches once the temporary false cast-on edge has been unravelled. What do you then do with the live stitches?? Do they get individually sewn back into the pattern? Or do you need to have some kind of edge for every knitted lace piece you make? I'm a little confused.

Comments

[neotoma]

I'd only used the invisible cast-on for pieces that are going to have a knitted or crocheted edging. Otherwise sewing them down sounds very tedious.

[jamethiel]

Ah, okay. Methinks I must learn to crochet! And now I want to start a project that uses this technique, but I must finish the ones I already have on the needles

[ginny_t]

If the instructions don't say to go back and pick up the stitches, I would recommend the backwards loop cast on. The first row after casting on can be a giant pain, but it's worth it.

[jamethiel]

Ah, ok! It's another method to try. I've recently gone from the knit-on cast-on to longtail (much preferred), but I'm always up for adding a new technique!

[ct]

What neotoma said, pretty much.

Do you crochet? If you still want to use a provisional (invisible) cast-on and just don't like the look of an added edging, you can take care of the live stitches with something that's sort of a cross between a crocheted bind-off and a crocheted edging. Unravel the cast-on and put the live stitches back on a needle. Then, for every live stitch, sc (single crochet) in the stitch and then chain a few before doing the sc in the next stitch. You'll get an edge that's scalloped to varying degrees, depending on how many chain stitches you put between the single crochets.

[jamethiel]

I don't, but it's another thing that's on the list to learn. Along with tatting.

[malka]

Generally you use them to knit in the other direction. For instance, I've seen descriptions of square shawls where you invisibly cast on for the border in the lower left, knit a long skinny strip of border for the bottom, then put the invisibly-cast-on stitches on the needle with the other stitches and work back and forth across the entire width of the shawl.

The one exception is that if you work K1 P1 on the row after the invisible cast on, I think it won't unravel. I'm not sure it's a nice edge, though.

[jamethiel]

That's a handy tip about K1 P1, but I'm not entirely sure I'd care to put it to the test on anything major--I have wool-sucking cats, I'm afraid :S

[aquaeri]

I think it's right that K1 P1 in provisional won't unravel. I don't know, because I actually cast on directly into K1 P1 for my rib (Montse Stanley calls it "tubular cast on" in The Knitter's Handbook and describes it immediately after provisional cast on). I like the edge a lot on rib, because it just flows into the rib and has the same stretch. If the rest of the pattern is not rib, it probably will look weirder.

[iamshadow]

My partner, who's an awesome amateur photographer, took a lot of photos of my Boye Needlemaster and Crochetmaster sets when they arrive, and made a bunch of icons from them, free to take with credit. They're HERE. Hope you like!

[jamethiel]

Oh those are gorgeous! Thank you very much! Your partner's very talented!

... without meaning to seem like a random creeper, do you mind if I add you to my reading circle? We're both Australian, into fibre/textile arts

How do you find the needles to knit with? I admit to really preferring casein needles as I've found that some metal needles make my hands ache. When I get out of debt though, I'm going to treat myself to a set of knitpicks/knitpro wooden needles.

[iamshadow]

Add away! Thanks to all the friending memes going on, a few people have added me lately.

I've found I have to use metal needles. I learnt on them, you see, and I destroy plastic needles. I bought a KnitPro casein set, and stress-fractured a pair of tips in a week. Fortunately. Morris & Sons in Sydney refunded me fully, otherwise that would have been diabolical.

For the Boye kit, I had to get them shipped from the US. If I'd done it directly, it would have cost me an absolute fortune, but I have a friend there who was willing to buy them herself and post them on to me, which saved me a LOT of money.

The tips - I love them. The interchangeability is fabulous. The neatness and practicality of the case is FAR superior to what KnitPro offers. The only think I miss about the KnitPro set is the cables. The Boye cables are fairly stiff. Think of your average fixed circulars out here, like that, but maybe a little more so. They remind me of some older circulars I inherited from my Mum. The perfect set for me would be Boye tips with the purple KnitPro cables, but I can't get that without modding the tips, and for that I'd need a gunsmith (who aren't exactly as common out here as in the USA), and understand that while I might end up with a great kit, if he's clumsy, he could easily destroy them instead.