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tutorial – working the Icelandic bind-off

In this tutorial, I’m going to show you how to work the Icelandic bind-off. I must admit, I’m not sure how it came by its name. I do know that it’s a bind-off that gives a very stretchy cord-like edge to your work. For this reason, it’s often advised for binding off long stretches of garter stitch. In this tutorial, however, I made a little swatch in stockinette to show you how to do it.

Materials used

Yarn: Paintbox Yarns Simply DK, a good value, good quality 100% acrylic yarn, here in the color Marine.

Needles: This is a pair of straights that I picked up at the second-hand store when I started knitting, brand unknown.

Working the Icelandic bind-off step by step

To start, knit the first stitch on the needle.
Next, slip the stitch just worked from the right-hand needle back to the left-hand needle purl-wise.
The reason for slipping it back, purl-wise, is that we want this stitch to be mounted twisted.
Now insert the right-hand needle as if to purl into the first stitch on the left-hand needle….
… then insert the right-hand needle as if to knit into the next stitch on the needle.
This is how that looks:
Next, wrap your yarn around the needle…
…. and pull it through.
Next, slip both stitches off the needle.
Repeat steps 2-7 until only 1 stitch is left.
To completely finish the bind-off, break the yarn, and pull the end through this last loop.

And that’s all there is to it!

Thanks to my Patreon supporters for bringing you this freebie! Creating quality patterns and tutorials is a lot of work and resource-intensive. However, I find it important to give you free content like this tutorial. Thanks to the generous support of my Patreon supporters, I can make it happen. Thank you, patrons! Click here to join, or click here to read more about La Visch Designs on Patreon.

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tulpa

The Tulpa cowl was inspired by the hand spun yarn the cowl pictured is made in. It can, of course, also be worked in another fingering or light fingering weight yarn. Whatever you choose: This is bound to be an entertaining knit with a stunning result!

This pattern contains instructions for 3 sizes. The Tulpa cowl is seamless and knitted in the round. The instructions for the patterning are provided both charted and written out.

Pay what you want: (minimum €5.50)

€

Difficulty level

Tulpa is seamless and worked in the round from the bottom up. Stitches used include knit, purl, k2tog, skp, twisted stitches, yo, as well as centered, left-leaning, and right-leaning double decreases. This pattern is suitable for the intermediate knitter.

Sizes and finished measurements

Finished size S (M, L): 70.5 (84.5, 98.5) cm / 27 ¾ (33 ¼, 38 ¾) inches circumference and 38.5 cm / 15 ¼ inches high. The sample shown is in size M.

The size can further be adjusted by changing the number of cast-on stitches to any multiple of 26.

Pattern details

Tulpa is written for a gauge of 18.5 sts / 32.2 rounds = 10 cm (4 inches) over pattern after washing and gentle blocking.
Pattern language included: English.
Digital PDF has 5 pages (letter size).

Yarn

316 (375, 440) m (346 (411, 481) yds) / 59 (70, 82) g 2-ply hand spun yarn [50% wool, 50% silk; 531 m (581 yds) / 99 g], with a WPI of 15.

Substitute any fingering or light fingering weight wool/silk blend gradient yarn for a similar result.

Materials

For the sample cowl in size M, a 4 mm (US 6) circular needle was used, 60 cm (24 inches) length suggested. Choose a needle size to match gauge and a length appropriate for the chosen size.
Yarn needle.
1 end-of-round stitch marker.
5 (6, 7) stitch markers to separate repeats of the patterning (optional).

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tutorial – working the bunny ears back decrease

Earlier, I already showed you how to work the bunny ears decrease. In this tutorial, I’m going to show the bunny ears back decrease, which is similar to the bunny ears decrease. It’s also a symmetrical way of decreasing 3 stitches to only 2, called this way, because the result somewhat looks like 2 bunny ears “hugging” the resulting 2 stitches. However, instead of the “ears” pointing outwards, they point inwards.

Part of this decrease is working a left leaning single decrease of your choice. I prefer skp, so that’s what I’ll be showing in this tutorial. But it can be changed to ssk or any other left leaning decrease you prefer.

Materials used

Yarn: Paintbox Yarns Simply DK, a good value, good quality 100% acrylic yarn, here in the color Marine.

Needles: This is a pair of straights that I picked up at the second-hand store when I started knitting, brand unknown.

Working the bunny ears back decrease step by step

First, work your way across the row until you’ve reached the point where you want to make the decrease.
See those first 3 stitches on the left-hand needle? That’s where I’ll be making the bunny ears back decrease.
Next, work the left leaning decrease of your preference over the first 2 stitches.
I’ve worked a skp, you can see the result in the picture below.
Now take a good look at the decrease you worked.
Do you see the 2 stitches that were decreased to 1, with the one on the left “covered’ by the other one?
Now insert the left-hand needle underneath the left loop of that lower stitch.
Next, work a k2tog over the first 2 stitches on the left-hand needle as the final step.
Below, you can see the result: 3 stitches that have been symmetrically decreased to 2 stitches.

And that’s all there is to it!

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tutorial – working a tubular CO in the round for 1×1 rib

The tubular cast on creates a rounded edge of your knitting project, as well as being very stretchy. This makes it a very good cast on for edges that are prone to wear and tear. And, of course, where the stretch is useful. Think, for example, of top-down socks, and the start of a bottom-up hat. In this example I’m casting on for a top-down sweater.

Of course, there are many ways to work a tubular cast on. This particular version is for working in the round in k1, p1 rib patterning.

Materials used

Yarn: Shetland Lambswool from De Schapekop, a yarn very similar to Jamieson & Smith 2ply Jumper Weight, and no. 5 crochet thread or other smooth waste yarn.

Needles: KnitPro Zing Fixed Circular Needles. In this tutorial, I used the 2.5 mm (US 1 1/2) and the 3.5 mm (US 4) size. Both with a cable length of 80 cm (32 inches).

Other materials: a crochet hook, and a stitch marker.

Working a tubular CO in the round for 1×1 rib step by step

First, using the larger size needles, the smooth waste yarn and the provisional cast on of your choice, cast on half as many stitches as you need according to your pattern.
In other words: if you need 80 stitches, cast on 40. I used the crochet provisional cast on for this step.
Now, using the smaller size needle and the working yarn, work (k1, yo) across all provisionally cast on stitches.
After this row is finished, as shown below, it’s time to join into the round.
The last worked stitch is a yarn over, so make sure it stays intact when joining into the round.
Here I’ve rearranged my stitches to continue knitting in the round, magic loop style.
Before joining, I made sure that my stitches weren’t twisted, and I’ve added the stitch marker to indicate the beginning (and end) of a round. Also, do you see that the yarn over is still there, behind the stitch marker?
In this step, work (knit 1, slip 1 purl wise with the yarn in front) to the end of the round.
In other words: knit every stitch that was knit in the previous round, and slip every yarn over. Below, is how it looks after this round is completed.
Next, work (slip 1 purl wise with the yarn in the back, purl 1) to the end of the round.
In other words: slip every stitch that was knit in the previous round, and purl every stitch that was slipped. This is how it then looks:
In this step, work (knit 1, slip 1 purl wise with the yarn in front) to the end of the round.
In other words: knit every stitch that was slipped in the previous round, and slip every stitch that was purled.
Now we repeat step 6: work (slip 1 purl wise with the yarn in the back, purl 1) to the end of the round.
In other words: slip every stitch that was knit in the previous round, and purl every stitch that was slipped.
In this step, it’s time to unravel the provisional cast on
Starting at the end that you indicated when doing the provisional cast on, undo the knot and gently pull the cast on loose.
This is the cast-on result, ready for further knitting (k1, p1) rib in the round (using magic loop) as described in your pattern!

A comparison

I thought it would be useful to compare the tubular cast on with a regular knitted on cast on one. So, I continued the piece above with another few rounds in (k1, p1) rib until it measured 1.5 cm / 0.6″.

Now take a look at the following picture. The lower neckband has a regular knitted-on cast on, followed by 1×1 rib for 1.5 cm / 0.6″. The one at the top has the tubular cast on in the round with 1×1 rib. Both pieces are worked in the same yarn, and with the same needle size.

I think the neckband with the tubular cast on looks much better, with its rounded edge. It is also much less likely to give issues with wear & tear, because there are no single strands of yarn right at that edge. What do you think?

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mossy cables

Mossy Cables is a cozy triangular shawl knit sideways, with an eye-catching cable panel. The squishy garter stitch makes it perfect to hide away in, when it’s cold outside. While I made my version in a DK weight yarn, it’s very easy to customize to other weights and quantities of yarn. Just knit in pattern until your shawl has the desired size, or when you run out of yarn!

The pattern contains both fully written out as well as charted instructions for the cable panel.

Pay what you want: (minimum €6.50)

€

Difficulty level

This pattern features a cable panel, with cables worked over 2 stitches, as well as cables worked over 10 stitches. Directions for part of the body are written separately from the cable panel instructions, and must be read together to work each row. Techniques used include knitting cables with a cable needle. Stitches used include knit, purl, and kfb. This pattern is suitable for the intermediate to advanced knitter.

Sizes and finished measurements

Finished dimensions of the sample shawl: span width of 180 cm (71 inches) along the upper edge and a depth of 78 cm (30 ¾ inches), measured after blocking.

Change the size of the shawl by using heavier or lighter weight yarn and/or working fewer (or more) repeats of the body, the border, or both. This will, of course, change the amount of yarn needed.

Pattern details

Mossy Cables is written for a gauge of approx. 10.5 sts / 20 rows = 10 cm (4 inches) over garter stitch, measured after blocking. Gauge is however not critical in this design.
Pattern languages included: English.
Digital PDF has 6 pages (letter size)

Yarn

591 m (645 yds) / 300 g Wayfaring Yarns Arcadia DK (100% Merino; 197 m (215 yds) / 100 g) in “Portobello Road”.

This yarn and pattern are also available as a kit from Sweater Sisters!

Substitute a smooth DK weight yarn of comparable thickness in a tonal color for a similar result.

Materials

Size 4.5 mm (US 7) / 80 cm (32 inches) circular needles were used for the sample shawl. Choose a needle size appropriate for the yarn selected.
Yarn needle
2 cable needles
2 stitch markers to indicate the cable panel
Stitch markers to indicate repeats of the cable patterning (optional)

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tutorial – cabling without a cable needle

Most of my projects are about knitting lace, not cables. The reason? I find that with cabling, my flow is very much interrupted. First by getting the cable needle. Next, by manipulating all three needles I have in my hands at that moment while working the stitches. Followed by laying the cable needle aside again. All of this to repeated multiple times in a row, depending on the patterning, of course.

For complex cables, I see no way around using a cable needle. For the simple twists only involving 2 stitches, it’s another matter, though! Cabling itself is nothing more than working in another order than the one they originally appeared on the knitting needle. So, if we’re talking about simple twists only involving 2 stitches, we can easily change the order around without using a cable needle. And, of course, without having a big risk of dropping a stitch.

In this tutorial I show you how to go about it!

Materials used

Yarn: Wayfaring Yarns Arcadia DK, a 100% extra fine, non-superwash merino in the color Portobello Road.

Needles: Addi Fixed Circular Needles. In this tutorial, I used the 4.5 mm (US 7) size with a cable length of 80 cm (32 inches).

Cabling without a cable needle step by step

In this example, I’m working on my Mossy Cables shawl that involves various types of cables. The ones that can easily be done without a cable needle, are the following ones:
1/1 LPC – a left cross cable over 2 stitches: Slip next stitch to cable needle and place at front of work, p1, then k1 from cable needle.
1/1 RPC – right cross cable over 2 stitches: Slip next stitch to cable needle and place at back of work, k1, then p1 from cable needle.

To start, we knit to the point where a cable has to be worked.
See those 2 stitches on the left-hand needle? I want to reverse the order of that purl and knit stitch, to make it seem that the column of knit stitches curves outwards from the center cable. To do so, I want the knit stitch to cross in front and to the right of the purl stitch. In other words: I’ll be working a 1/1 RPC or right cross cable.
To start, I grab the work directly below the 2 stitches, as shown in the picture below.
This way, I can remove them from the knitting needle without having the risk of them running down and ruining my work.
Here I’ve removed the 2 stitches from the needle.
Keep squeezing that fabric, we don’t want to drop one of these stitches!
To change the order of the stitches, I first place the stitch on the right (the purl stitch in this case) back on the needle.
While doing so, keep your fingers underneath the other stitch to keep it from running down. Please note that if I was working a left cross cable instead of a right cross cable, I would have held the remaining loose stitch at the back, instead of at the front of the work as pictured.
Now use the working (right-hand) needle to catch the remaining loose stitch from the front and also put it on the left-hand needle.
For a left cross cable, I would have caught the remaining stitch from the back of the work.
Now the order of the stitches has been changed, ready to work!
This is how it then looks in the case of the right cross cable:
For this right cross cable, I have to work 1 k, followed by 1 p.
This is how it looks when done:

And that’s all there is to cabling without a cable needle!

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tutorial – working slip stitch (as edge treatment)

Tutorial on workign slip stitch as an edge treatment

In my previous tutorial, I showed you how I went about fixing my mr Greenjeans cardigan to make it more wearable. As part of the fix, I also worked slip stitching along all outer edges of the cardigan, to tie the new contrasting yarn together better with the original elements of the garment. For this reason, I worked the slip stitch with the right side facing. Doing something similar with the same yarn as used in the rest of the project, could be done to make the edges look a tad neater.

Another application for slip stitching as edge treatment would be to work it on the inside (wrong side facing) of the garment. In particular, along the edge of the back neck, and possibly also the shoulder seam. Doing this with a non-stretchy yarn can help prevent stretching and sagging of these edges, if the garment is prone to that.

So, let’s get started!

Working slip stitch step by step

Insert a crochet hook into the stitch at the edge of the fabric.
On both cast-on and bind-off edge, each stitch looks like a little “V”. Insert the hook underneath both strands of the V.
Wrap the yarn around your hook…
… and pull it through.
You now have 2 loops on your hook.
To finish, pull the loop that is nearest to the tip of your hook through the other loop.
Repeat steps 1-4 until you run out of edge to work!
Note that you may want to work 3 slip stitches in the stitch that sits right at the corner of the fabric, to “turn” that corner.

This is the result when viewed from the right side of the fabric:

Neat, isn’t it? Below, you can see the very same piece of fabric, viewed from the wrong side. The horizontal line of stitches in the contrasting pink is almost invisible.

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tutorial – fixing my mr Greenjeans

This project has quite the backstory, so I’ll get started to get you up to speed. Back in 2011 I bought 2 batts of Texeler wool, each a whopping 200 g. One was cyclamen pink, the other more pink & purple. I spun each of these into singles, and twined them into an (on average) 2-ply DK-weight yarn. Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures of the resulting yarn to show you.

Anyway, I decided to use this yarn to make myself a Mr Greenjeans cardigan, which is a pattern by Amy Swenson, available for free on Knitty. When I started the project, it was just after my youngest was born, and I was still breastfeeding. I expected to lose some weight because of that, so I aimed at a size to end up eventually with a garment with approx. 0 cm / 0″ of ease. Things going as they go, I didn’t finish the project until sometime in 2013. By then I had lost so much baby weight that my mr Greenjeanshad a whopping 14 cm / 5.6” of positive ease! Nevertheless, I put it in my closet and wore it from time to time.

Below you can see how I wore it at the time. I didn’t even make the effort to sew a button on, I just closed it with a shawl pin.

Fast-forward to July 2021: Looking back, I really haven’t worn this garment that much. You see, it turned out to be very warm. So warm, in fact, that I only wore it on the coldest days of the year. That combined with the 3/4th length sleeves made it rather unpractical to wear for me. But, I realized that the pink yarn I bought in Greece a couple of years ago, is a lovely match with this cardigan!

So, long story short, I hatched the plan to fix my mr Greenjeans by undoing the bind-off, work in stockinette until the hand spun is finished and then redo the cuffs with the pink yarn. And I made pictures of what I did!

Fixing my mr Greenjeans step by step

Undoing the bind-off and unraveling the cabled cuffs.
The original yarn tail was, of course, woven in. However, with some smart and careful snipping, I managed to unravel the bind-off and then rip back the knitting to the point where the stockinette stopped.
Re-knitting the hand spun yarn.
I put the stitches on a tiny circular needle, and continued the stockinette section of the sleeve until I couldn’t work another round. And yes, I kept track of the number of rounds to be able to duplicate it for the other sleeve.
No more round possible!
I made a total of 18 extra rounds of stockinette in the hand spun yarn.
The next step consisted of re-knitting the cabled cuff in the somewhat matching pink yarn.
Here I made 29 rounds to arrive at a cozy long sleeve length.
Repeat steps 1 to 4 for the other sleeve!

And this is the result of foxing my mr Greenjeans!

As you can see, I found a button in the very same pink as the contrast yarn, and actually sewed it on. To tie everything together, I also did some slip stitching along all outer edges of the cardigan. In my next tutorial, I’ll show you how to work slip stitches as an edge treatment!

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tutorial – working the bunny ears decrease

Tutorial on working the bunny ears decrease

In this tutorial, I’m going to show you a very neat decrease: the bunny ears decrease. It’s a symmetrical way of decreasing 3 stitches to only 2! It’s called this way, because the result somewhat looks like 2 bunny ears “hugging” the resulting 2 stitches. Now, in this version of the decrease, the “ears” are pointing outwards. There is also a version in which the ears point inwards, that one is called the “bunny ears back” decrease. I’ll make a tutorial on that version of the decrease soon.

Materials used

Yarn: Paintbox Yarns Simply DK, a good value, good quality 100% acrylic yarn, here in the color Marine.

Needles: This is a pair of straights that I picked up at the second-hand store when I started knitting, brand unknown.

Working the bunny ears decrease step by step

In patterns, you may encounter the following description of this stitch:
Bunny ears decrease (bedec): Knit 2 stitches together but leave the second stitch on the left needle, next work skp over the next 2 stitches.
But how to actually do this? Read on!

First, work your way across the row until you’ve reached the point where you want to make the decrease.
See those 3 stitches on the left-hand needle? That’s where I’ll be making the bunny ears decrease.
Next, insert the tip of the right-hand needle into the first 2 stitches at the same time as if to knit.
Over these stitches, we’ll be doing the first steps of a k2tog.
Wrap the yarn around the needle…
… and pull the yarn through the 2 stitches.
Next, slide only 1 of the 2 original stitches of the left-hand needle.
With a regular k2tog, both stitches would be moved off the needle. So this is where it starts to go different.
Now we’re starting the left leaning decrease part of the stitch.
The main point here is to work this on the 2 remaining stitches on the left-hand needle: 1 stitch we haven’t handled yet, and 1 stitch that we didn’t move off the needle when working the k2tog right-leaning decrease. This part of the stitch can be worked as ssk, skp, or any other way you may prefer to work a left-leaning decrease. Since I personally prefer skp I’ll be showing this in the tutorial.

To start, insert the tip of the right-hand needle into the first stitch as if to knit, and slip it onto the right-hand needle without actually knitting it. This is how it now looks:
Next, we knit the second stitch.
To do so, we start with inserting the right-hand needle into the first stitch on the other needle, wrap the yarn around the needle, pull it through the stitch you inserted the right-hand needle in, and slip the original stitch off the left-hand needle.
Next, insert the left-hand needle into the second stitch counted from the tip of the right-hand needle…
… and pull it over the first stitch from the tip of the right-hand needle to complete the decrease.
Do you see how this part of the decrease slants to the left? With this, the bunny ears decrease is finished.

And that’s all there is to it!

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tutorial – preparing alpaca for spinning

Recently I learned that the mother of an acquaintance of my mom has a small flock of alpacas, and piles of unused freshly shorn fiber. So when, the question came if I would be interested in taking some of her hands, I was delighted! I’ve never worked with raw alpaca before. I got a big bag of white and another one in brown, the pictures below really don’t do it justice.

And, of course, I had to prepare this raw alpaca to be able to spin it into yarn! In this post, I’ll show you how I went about it. Please bear in mind that I’m new to processing alpaca, so this very first batch really was a matter of trial and error for me.

Differences between alpaca and wool

Before going into detail about how I prepped this fiber for spinning, it’s good to talk about the differences between wool from sheep and the fiber from alpaca’s. Off course, there are many differences in fiber even within both sheep and alpaca’s, due to breed, age, nutrition etc. A very basic difference, however, is that alpaca fibers are hollow, where sheep fibers are not. Because of this, alpaca fiber repels water and retains heat, making it warmer than wool. Also, in general, alpaca will have better drape and less elasticity than sheep wool.

From a fiber prep perspective, the main difference is that sheep wool contains lanolin and alpaca fiber does not. However, alpaca’s just love their dust baths, so a wash before spinning is absolutely advised to prevent locking in dirt.

Ok, let’s get started on this fiber!

Alpaca fiber prep step by step

Since I’m very new to preparing raw alpaca for spinning, I’ve started with only a small amount of fiber. My aim is to prep enough to spin a shawl-amount of yarn.

Picking through the yarn to remove the short bits.
This fiber was not shorn with the hand spinner in mind and contains quite a lot of vegetable matter and shortcuts that will have to be filtered out. In the picture below, you see on the right the pile of shortcuts that I’ve already removed from this handful of alpaca.
After, picking each handful of fiber, I put it into this laundry bag.
This particular one has compartments, which is a good thing, since it reduces the amount of movement possible in the bag, and thus possible felting/
One bag completely filled!
There fits much more fiber into the bag than one might think. The pile in front of it are all the short bits I filtered out.
Next step is washing the fiber.
Here I used some wool wash and warm water. Not to remove lanolin from the fiber, since alpaca doesn’t have any, but to get some of the dust and dirt out. Take care not to agitate or squeeze the fiber, because it doesn’t take much to felt it.
Do you see how filthy the water turns?
The fiber itself didn’t look as dirty, but looks can be deceiving!
The grit remaining in the sink after washing.
I really didn’t expect this much dirt to come out.
After washing, I rinsed the fiber in a new bath with hot water.
Again, take care not to agitate the fiber to prevent felting.
Next, I’m removing as much water out of the fiber as possible, without squeezing!
Because this is a tiny amount of fiber, I used my dedicated fiber salad spinner. For bigger quantities, a centrifuge would be best. Please note that the centrifuge in your washing machine is only advised if you can use it without any rinsing water, because that would cause the fiber to felt.
The next step is to dry the alpaca.
I filled up my laundry bag twice and agitated the second batch even less than the first one. You can see the difference in this picture: on the left is the first batch, and on the right the second one. This stuff really felts as soon as you look at it wrong! I use a flat perforated crate for drying fiber, to promote air circulation. (Also, Donut is of the opinion that wet alpaca smells funny.)
After drying, which took a couple of days, this is what I ended up with.
It looks a tad felted, despite handling it as lightly as possible.
Fortunately, the fiber fluffed up quite nicely!
On the right, you see some more shortcuts that I found and separated out.
Below, you can see the result of all the washed alpaca fluffed up.
Doesn’t it look wonderful?
Next is carding all the fluffed up fiber into batts for spinning.
I ended up with 5 batts total. For those who’re interested: my carding machine is an Ashford drum carder, with a 72 point carding cloth.
During carding, I again removed any shortcuts that I found.
The dirt pictured, is what I found underneath my carder after I was finished.

And that’s everything I did to prep the raw alpaca for spinning!

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