My first knitting help video is uploaded on YouTube. It is a demonstration of how I do the Continental Cast on Method but it deserves a few words here on the blog as well. Continental Cast on is not the easiest one but I use this method whenever I can in my designs because it creates a beautiful cast on-edge which has just the right tension, no too tight and not to stretchy. This is a finger cast on method, which means you have to work with one needle and your fingers to do the cast on. There are two tricks you have to know.

The first is how to measure how far to make the slip knot from the end of the yarn. This is important because you will need two strands of yarn for this method which are divided by the slip knot and you will have to leave the tail long enough to be able to cast on all the stitches you need for your workpiece.

The other thing is the cast on technique itself: how to move your fingers and the two strands of yarn around to form the stitches. At first it may seem complicated but you will get used to it in no time and seeing the result will compensate you for the time you had to spend on the learning phase.

One more important thing about the Continental Cast on Method. It counts as a knit row and determines which sides would the right and wrong sides of your work be. After you have casted on all stitches you needed and turn your work, you will start knitting on the wrong side. This doesn’t mean anything if your pattern asks for using this method because the designer most probably took this into consideration when she/he wrote the pattern (at least I always do…). But if your pattern let’s you choose between cast on techniques and you chose this one, you have to be careful to check whether your first row in the pattern is a wrong-side row, too (if not, you have 3 choices:

1. choose another cast on method (this is the easiest one, obviously).

2. purl one row and then you can start with the 1st row of your pattern. You may choose this when you are knitting a project that doesn’t have a strict gauge because adding two rows – the cast on row and the purl row – will change the size of your workpiece.

3. leave out the 1st RS row of the pattern and start with the second row which has to be the first WS row. This way you won’t change the gauge. But you have to consider that you will lose one row from the pattern (which may be important when you knit a lace pattern for example).

So again, you can find the video here:

I’ve put timestamps in the description of the video so you can jump straight to the part where I show how to do the cast on in case you want to skip all the explanation part. I hope it is helpful to you! Please let me know what you think in the comments!

Happy Knitting!
Mici