"No Guessing" longtail cast-on!

[ArtLady1981]

At our recent local SSKG meetup, a 'no guessing' long-tail cast on was demonstrated by our president.

It is particularly handy when casting on a lot of stitches! No doubt, many of you already know about this tip...but it was new to me, so maybe it's new to some of you as well. I printed it and stuffed it into my knitting bag! It's not hard to remember, but I WANT TO REMEMBER to use it next time!

Here it is:

" Instead of trying to guess how much yarn to peel off before making your slip knot and doing long-tail cast-on, use two balls of yarn or the tail from inside ball and the end tail from outside ball, put them together and make a slip knot. Put the slip knot on your needle and separate the strands of yarn into your long tail cast-on "tent". Cast on until you have the number of stitches you need, plus one. Work back to slip knot and slip it off end of needle and slip knot out. That's it. Clean and simple."

[Jan in CA]

I've done this on occasion and it's well worth repeating! Thanks for posting!

[vaudiss]

I like this for when I have two balls handy....I always have WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY to much or just BARELY enough but never the right amount

[ArtLady1981]

You could use this cast-on with one ball of yarn. One end comes from inside the ball, the other end comes from outside the ball.

[Woodi]

I really like this tip. Thank you Artlady!

and how cool is it that you go to a meeting where you talk about knitting! what do the letters SSKG stand for? (KG must be 'knitting group') right?

[ArtLady1981]

Oh sorry! SSKG means South Sound Knitting Guild!

I've learned soooo much at the monthly meetups!
Some of our knitters are in their 80's! Still driving, still knitting!

I learned about "About.com" from SSKG...from there the knitting forum associated with it...from there KnittingHelp.com! People kept referring to KH and linking other knitters to KH!

[psquidy]

I just read this tip in a book. I can't wait to try it!

[Lillian Ho]

To save on having the extra tails to weave in with Artlady's method I try to guessimate the amount of yarn I need for the full cast on row. Here's what I do. First, I cast on an amount of stitches, say 20, making sure that the tail end is on the thumb. Then I unravel it, measuring the length it took to complete these 20 stitches, for example 8 inches After that, I divide the total number of stitches of my cast on row by 20 and multiply by 8. That will give me the length of yarn to allow for the long tail. For example, if I'm casting on 100 stitches, I'll allow 40 inches plus a couple more for good measure.

Lillian

[zkimom]

Ok, since I'm a very visual learner, can I make sure I understand this? The slip knot is your extra stitch. When you have cast on all you need plus the slip knot, you slide the knot off and then cut the yarn from the other source or outside of the ball and weave the extra in?

Is this kind of like doing a provisional cast on but not removing the extra cast on piece?

Sorry for being so dense but I seem to read this early in the morning when my brain is foggy and the caffeine hasn't taken effect yet.

[Slim]

Thanks for the tip! I'll definitely try it.