Down to the Wire

Tomorrow is Christmas!

Okay, not really, but I'm probably more excited by the thought of the fiber festival than of Christmas any more. After all, I'll be buying my own presents, and I know what I would like better'n anybody -- if I remember to put my little stash of spending cash in my wallet! It's amazing the perfectly logical things I can forget to bring when I try to keep them all in my head.

Naturally, instead of getting ready, what I did was start a little knitted bag out of size 12 perle cotton (hand-dyed Valdani) on 5-0 needles. You know, avoidance behavior. And of course, since I wasn't supposed to be working on it, I got the bottom done.


I started with the "Magic cast-on for toe-up socks" from Knitty.
If you have tried this cast-on, you might have noticed that it says in 10.) "Be careful! The cast-on loops on needle #2 are twisted."

I thought, Okay, why should I cast them on twisted if I don't want them twisted? So I muddled around with a pair of big knitting needles and a piece of finger-loop braid, and figured out that if you bring the working yarn in between the two casting-on needles and around needle #2 from front to back (instead of around from the back and then between, as shown in the instructions), the stitches on needle #2 don't start out twisted.

This was good, because with dark, black-to-violet size 12 perle cotton and 5-0 needles, I have enough messing around without having to remember to knit through the back loop.

I'm using my Dritz doll needles and one Havel's size 5 tatting needle, which are as close to my Lacis 5-0's as makes no difference. I did try the 5-0's, but they are so long that I am in danger of blinding myself.

When I knit with stuff this small, I take off my glasses and take advantage of my near-sighted close vision. The doll needles are short enough that even as close as I hold the knitting, the points aren't in my face. Plus, being needle-needles, they only have one point. I just knit right off the eye.

Another advantage of the doll needles was that when I started knitting from the cast-on, I could run a piece of heavy crochet thread through the needle #2 stitches.

What I ended up with was a nice, smooth invisible start at the bottom of the bag. A very handy little technique, and one I'll be taking advantage of!