Despite having started in crochet before diving into knitting, I had never heard of the crochet cast-on technique. It turns out that this cast-on more closely mimics the cast-off edge than a backwards loop cast-on or knitted cast-on. Given that this is a blanket, I really wanted both sides to look as similar as possible, so this seemed like a great technique to try out.
- Appropriate weight yarn
- Appropriate gauge hook
- Appropriate gauge needles
As it turns out, the other name for this cast-on is a Chinese waitress cast-on, which, for obvious reasons is being phased out of use. Anyways, if you are used to a crochet hook, this cast-on works up very quickly, and I love how clean it looks. The downsides are that the cast-on is not very stretchy, and of course, it isn’t suited to ribbing. It’s really cool how many different techniques there are for knitting, each invented for a different purpose.
I didn’t realize that this was so closely related to the provisional cast-on because I learned that technique a different way. In that tutorial, instead of working the stitch around the needle, the needle is later inserted into the back of the chain-stitches. It’s also done with scrap yarn, as provisional cast-ons are meant to be removed, whereas this one is permanent. Are there any favourite knitting techniques in your repertoire? How did you learn them?
Until next time, happy crafting!