Socks. Bookmark. Purl. Circular. Mattressstitch. Tubular cast-on without the waste. Tubular cast-on the Italian way is done without the extra yarn in contrasting color.
It's no better or worse than the way it's done in the US. The result is identical: only the process differs. I like it because there is no unnecessary waste and you don't have to worry about finding a sacrificial yarn in the same weight, but different color. Here it goes (video clip of the cast-on and first row at the bottom of this entry). You'll need an equal length of yarn on both sides to cast on the stitches, so leave a tail as if you were doing a long-tail cast on.
Holding the yarn with both hands, place it under the needle, keeping the tail in your right hand. From now on, you will alternate between using left and right hand, moving the yarn with one hand and holding the last stitch in place with the other hand. Let's start. No-Fault Decreases (p) Decreases that require slipping and/or flipping stitches make me um, hiss, in frustration.
I like to use slick needles, but too many times, when I pass a stitch over, the entire unit flips off the needle, runs down the complicated lace pattern, and dares me to breathe. The last time this happened, I decided to put a stop to the insanity and spent a couple of hours reworking all those stupid stop-slip-slip-flip-slide techniques so they can be done in a single step. No slipping or flipping required. No hauling stitches over other stitches. No stopping to rip back to the lifeline (you did have a lifeline there, right?)
Watch closely. K2 together--left slant Traditional method: slip 1, k1 pass the slipped stitch over the knit stitch. Better method: Slip 1 knitwise, Slip 1 purlwise, knit the two together through the back loop on the right-hand needle. Tutorial: The Side Picot on Muir. Lately, I've had a few questions about doing the picots along the side of Muir, particularly the beaded picot.
So here we go! At the beginning of the row in which a picot falls, cast on 2 stitches using the knitted cast on. This cast on allows you to knit extra stitches onto the needle before the stitches in the row are worked. It will look like the following picture after the stitches are cast on. Edited because my brain was obviously on a different planet when I wrote the tutorial: Knit the first two stitches you have just cast on together through the back loop, twisting the stitch. Bead placement step 1: Place bead on crochet hook as shown below. Bead placement step 2: Pull stitch through bead. Bead placement step 3: Replace stitch on left needle. Knit stitch through the back loop then bind off one stitch. And there you have it! Perfect picots! For those of you who do not yet have the urls, here is a beaded swatch for Muir, and here is the full beaded chart.
Let me explaiKnit: Let's (not) do the twist. We've covered various methods for doing a true cable, so let's turn our attention to mock cables.
What are mock cables? They're not a single thing, but a group of various techniques which produce a fabric that looks as though it's been cabled, but don't actually involve moving stitches around, which is the hallmark of a true cable. One of the most common types of mock cable is the twist stitch. A twist stitch is done on two stitches, by pairing a decrease across both stitches with working one of the stitches a second time; this gives you a slanted stitch which appears to move across the ground on which it lies, mimicking the true twist where one or more knit stitches move over one or more purl stitches. The twist stitch is more prominent than the true twist, and is often used on a stockinette ground, where the true twist is nearly always used on reverse stockinette.
There are many other types of mock cables. Why not just do true cables?