I spent the bulk of the day yesterday working on my DPNs. I stopped knitting the hat I showed you yesterday and decided to learn the invisible cast on technique so I could knit from the top down.
You are probably wondering why. Good question and I have a good answer. That white mohair, while so beautiful for its fuzziness, tends to get knitted in with the red wool. It is so fuzzy that for nearly 10+ rows after changing to my red wool I am still trying to get it to stay out of my red stitches. Truthfully, it is nearly impossible to do this 100% and that bothers me if it is avoidable, and it is; the solution is to knit with the white mohair last.
Okay, so that meant learning the invisible cast on. The first thing trying to learn this new cast on taught me is that I am not very coordinated, and I don’t have a photographic memory in the least. I watched the tutorial again and again and again. Hmm, where have I heard those words before? There are four needle movements for every two stitches cast on. Finally, I had to write out a cheat sheet and I was then able to perform the steps four times to get 8 stitches cast on. I won’t lie, it probably took me an entire hour to get this. And then, I kept on practicing it throughout the day to get it down better.
You probably have no idea what my notes mean, but it was all I needed to get this down, sort of.
And, after a day and evening of knitting this is what I made for my Little Darling, Gina!
Here’s my Santa hat, my first DPN project! I had the pom pom left over from last year, so I pinned it on where the one that will match this outfit will go.
For next time, I will use a rewritten pattern to make it a bit longer with a wider “fur” trim band. I also don’t like knitting garter in the round because it involves purling in the round, which I am not comfortable doing, so I will probably knit that part flat and make a short seam for that area. I found pics of garter stitch in the round and it looks seamed anyway.
Oh, Happy October everyone! It really feels fall-ish here todyay, very breezy and cool with puffy white and dark clouds moving rapidly across the sky, but it’s mostly sunny; it’s a very perfect fall day in my opinion. And, the moon is still out at almost 10:00 am!
Thanks for reading and big thank yous for your comments. I love reading them and commenting back. I work by myself all day (except for my dogs, of course), so it is so nice to connect with my readers.
Bye for now!
Cindy Rice Designs 
Love the hat! Adorable on Gina. Again, thanks for the tips!! I am going to try and master that invisible cast-on some day! I’m still on the basics, lol. My favorite cast-on is the knit cast-on and I have a problem with my outcome. Cindy, let’s say I have 30 knit cast-ons on my needle. Then I go to knit that row for row 1. The knit row 1 looks like each stitch kind of has a little loop hanging off the bottom of it. That is annoying when that row is the beginning of the neckline when you are knitting a sweater from the neck down. Am I casting on wrong or using wrong sized needles compared to yarn or what? What makes that cast-on stitch have a loopy look on the bottom? Pennie
Pennie,
Are you twisting the stitch before putting on the left needle? If not, you need to. Try this: make the stitch, before putting it on your left needle insert the tip of the left needle into the stitch from the front to the back, so your left needle will go to the far right and into the stitch. Then, be sure to snug up the stitch on the needle. That’s all there is to it! Staci at Very Pink knits has a video too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzVy8fRfOw0 .
Oh thank you Cindy. Wish I didn’t have to work today ( I work from home)…I’d sit here and knit!
I think that I’d knit all day too. I’d better get to other things today.
The hat is adorable and of course, Gina too. I can’t even knit on two needles, let alone four, but it is very interesting to see. Should some free time become available, I should watch a how to.
You must have flying needles to get done so quickly on your hats/sweaters.
Hi Joy and thank you. If I can pick up knitting anyone can. If you ever learn, I would recommend going right to the continental (picking) style where you hold the yarn in your left hand. Now that will enable you to fly through your knitting. I learned the English style (throwing) and it is hard to switch. I am sure some knitters can crank out a knitted doll hat in a couple of hours especially if they are a picker. Oh, well, I do enjoy it so.
I don’t know (or almost no) knitting, so you can imagine that your explaination seems very very complicated for me!!!
I can just say that Gina’s hat is beautiful!
I wish you a good day!
Friendly yours,
Hi Catherine. Thank you for the compliment on Gina’s hat. I’ve been working on the rest of her outfit today, so she is looking pretty much ready for Christmas even though it is still 2 1/2 + months away At least it is getting cooler here, so it doesn’t seem as crazy as it did last week when I was working with Christmas motifs. Hope you have a great Friday!
I have tried to email you several times. Google Rosemaries Belly button invisible cast on for circular lace knitting and invisible cast on in a crochet chain. Both easy and not the struggle as in the method you describe.
Thank you, Jan. I will definitely look into both of those. The belly button cast on sounds cute.
The belly buttn co takes time. More than the crochet chainco. I had my too long experience with the co you describe. I had trouble keeping track of where i was in the process. For a long cast on, the crochet co will be the fastest.
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