The Knitting Fiend

In my never ending quest to make my toy patterns as complicated as possible teach as many knitting techniques as possible using patterns for toys, I decided to use a three needle bind off for my, as yet to be unveiled, pumpkin pattern.

This rather fiddly, but wonderful, knitting technique is often used to simultaneously seam and bind off shoulders. You’ll probably curse a bit the first time you work it, but if you are at all finicky about your shoulder seams, you’ll be glad you learned it because it creates a very neat sturdy seam that resists stretching over time.

I’ll admit, this is a bit of overkill for a pumpkin pattern. However, I also know that doing this right requires a big of coordination. So, it’s less frustrating to learn on a small item. I could suggest you knit two swatches, but then you wouldn’t get a pumpkin out of the process, now would you?

So, here’s how to work the three needle bind off.

Begin with two pieces of edges same number of live stitches on needles. Line the needles up with right sides facing.

In the example to the left, I had used a cheaters provisional cast on for my pumpkin, then I picked up the live stitches. I folded the pumpkin in half with side I want to be the outside of the pumpkin facing each other.

Tip: Find the shortest possible needles of appropriate diameter to hold the stitches when doing this. It’s ok if they are a big smaller in diameter than the ones you used to knit the pumpkin or garment.

Step 1: Pick up a third needle. This needle should be close in diameter to the needles you used to knit the garment; I generally use one 1 size larger because I tend to bind off tightly.

If possible find a short needle because those are easier to handle; I found a short sock needle (DPN) in my stash.

Next, insert the tip of the needle purl-wise into the first stitch on the back needle, then continue on and pass through the stitch on the front needle; see above left. Now, wrap the yarn and purl through both stitches. This forms the seam.

Step 2: Repeat step 1. There are now two stitches on the right needle; see above right.

Step 3: Bind off a stitch on the right needle. Pick whichever of the left hand needles you prefer, and insert the tip into the left hand stitch on the right hand needle. Above and to the left, I have inserted the tip of the red needle into the right hand stitch on the green needle. Lift that stitch over the left stitch as shown above right. Drop the stitch you lifted; I’ll do that by simply withdrawing the red needle. One stitch will remain on the right needle.

Now, go back and repeat steps 2 and 3 until you run out of stitches on the left hand needle. Then break the yarn and draw the free end through the remaining loop to anchor.

When you are finished, the seam will create a nice chain.

Normally, I’d flip this over and show you how the awesome neat seam on the other side. This always looks really nice, plus, every stitch is always aligned with it’s companion stitch on the other side. This is really attractive should you ever knit shoulders in fair-isle.

Still, in this case, I’m not going to flip it over. Remember, this is the pumpkin pattern; I did some weird increasing and decreasing to create a decorative crunching up to form pumpkin ridges. (If you look carefully, you can see the double loops for the stitches in the decrease row.) So, I’m just going to make you take my word for it: the three needle bind off creates a very wonderful seam!

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This is filed in How to Knit.