The Knitting Fiend

I am forever trying to find new ways to bind off loosely in rib. When I knit a turtleneck, which is, after all wide enough to stretch over your head and therefor quite a big wider than your neck, I find it’s sufficient to bind off using larger diameter needles. Unfortunately, with socks, which have leg hugging ribbing, I often find the bind off row is still too tight.

What to do? Well, I tried a tapestry needle method. It works great, but I hate having to do things with a tapestry needle. So, I did some reading and found another bind off which sounded promising. But. . . it had one slow step, which I modified. (I have no idea if my modification was an improvement because I never tried the original method! )

Anyway, here is how I bound off for my socks. It’s a two round bind off; I’m going to describe each round a a time– because otherwise it sounds to scary.

Second to last round: Change to larger needles. *YO twice, K2, YO, P2; repeat from * to the end of the round.

What? YO twice after the P2? Heck, how do you YO after a knit stitch followed by a purl? Well, I’ll assume you know how to yarn over after a knit stitch, right? If you don’t read my YO lesson., but I’ll recap in words:

• When you complete the knit stitch, the yarn is in the back. Bring the yarn forward as if you are getting ready to purl. Notice when you do this you go under the right needle tip.
• Now, bring it back taking it over the needle tip. (Taking the yarn from front to back over the tip is what defines a forward — normal– yarnover.
• The yarn is now in back, so knit the next stitch.

Ok, so what if the next stitch is a purl?

• The yarn is now in back; to purl you need it in front. So, bring the yarn forward, passing under the needle. (You don’t want to undo the yarn over!)

This is a single yarnover because the yarn passed over the needle once.

Notice that this YO involves a fairly long length of yarn; the yarn passes over the right needle tip once and under twice. (Sorry, no photo. I goofed!)

Ok, so now you know how to work the “k2, yo, p2″ bit. But, the first step was “YO twice”! (I bet some of you wonder why do it twice. Let me tell you how first, then I’ll explain why.)

Ok, to YO once after a purl followed by a knit, you:

• Notice the yarn is in front.; bring the yarn back taking it over the right needle tip. (Remember, I said taking the yarn from front to back over the needle tip is what defines a forward — normal– yarnover. That means you’ve finished the YO! )
• The yarn is now in back, where you need it to knit, so if you were only working 1 YO, you could just insert your tip into the next stitch knit a stitch.

“Whoah Nelly”, you say! The single YO after a purl followed by a knit is really short! The yarn passes over the right needle tip once and never passes under.

Yep! But for this bind off we want the two YO type bits to create roughly the same length of yarn. That’s why I have you YO twice. So, to do the second YO, bring the yarn forward passing under the right needle tip, then take it to the back passing over the tip.

Notice the yarn will pass over the tip twice, under the tip once. Just the right length! Now insert the needle tip to knit the next stitch and wrap the yarn. (See left.)

Ok, so work the *YO twice, k2, yo, p2* bit all the way around. You will now have the k2 and p2 groups separated by the single and double yarnovers as shown below.

Now you will actually bind off. Working this bind off is fairly similar to working a regular bind off for k2-p2 rib. However, you need to do something with the yos. The text description is horrifying, so I’m going to describe the final round in pictures.

When you begin the round, you will see a double yarn over — the kind created after working a purl. See left.

Drop first YO off needle To do this, I am inserted the right needle tip into the yo as shown above left. After inserting, I just drug it off the left tip. One YO remained. Slip next yo inserting tip through back loop — see above center. Notice I brought the right needle tip to the left of the yo and inserted. This twists the yarn over and makes it easier to do later steps.

Now, we are going to do the repetitions part:

1. * k1, pass YO over the stitch you just knit — passing the YO over the stitch is illustrated above right. I’ve inserted the left tip into the the second stitch from the edge of the right tip; this stitch happens to be yellow. I’ll lift the yellow stitch over the blue stitch to its left and drop it off the right needle This binds off the yellow stitch, which in this case, is the YO I had just slipped.
2. k1, pass k1 over the stitch you just knit, — this binds off a knit stitch,
3. slip yo inserting tip through back loop, pass previous k1 over the yo, — this binds off another knit stitch,
4. p1, pass yo over p1, — this binds off a YO,
5. p1, pass p1 over p1, — this binds off a purl,
6. Drop first YO off needle, slip next yo inserting tip through back loop, pass p1 over YO — this binds off another purl.
7. repeat from *

When only one stitch remains, break yarn and draw through loop.

Ok, in one sentence:
Final round: Drop first YO off needle, slip next yo inserting tip through back loop now:
* k1, pass yo over the stitch you just knit, k1, pass k1 over the stitch you just knit, slip yo inserting tip through back loop, pass previous k1 over the yo, p1, pass yo over p1, p1, pass p1 over p1, drop first yo off needle, slip next yo inserting tip through back loop, pass p1 over yo; repeat from *,

Aren’t you glad I didn’t write that all at the beginning? It’s much easier to do than to read!

The bind off is stretchy, it looks decent. I’m going to see if I can improve on it, but it’s wearable, and it’s done!