The Knitting Fiend

A few visitors asked me to describe Idiot cord a bit. Idiot cord is the name applied by Elizabeth Zimmerman to a very simple very useful trim. I used it to make frogs closures.

How do you knit I-Cord?

When hand knitting, you knit it on two double point needles. You cast on 3 stitches. Knit a row, then don’t turn the work. Pull the yarn tightly to the right side, and knit the next row as though you did turn. (Yes, this seems weird. A float will form on the back.) Continue. As you knit, you will see the knitting forms a little tube.

It’s possible to knit I Cord directly on an edge that has already been knitted. It’s easy to do, but I’m not going to describe it here!

On a knitting machine, you cast on over 3 to 6 needles, and set the carriage to knit in one direction only, slipping when you knit in the other direction. As long as you use only a few needles, the work will form a nice little tube. While on the machine, you’ll notice floats forming on the back, but these will vanish when you pull down on the I-cord. Machine knitters can experiment to see how many stitches you can use to make I-Cord, that way you can make thinner or thicker I-Cord.

I used I-cord on the poncho I blogged about last night. You can read directions for frogs here.

Try I-Cord. It’s pretty fun to make and play around with!