4 Knitting Bind Off (Cast Off) Methods from Beginner to Advanced!

1. Introduction: Everyone, and welcome back. My name is Madeline from Knitting House Square, and I am back on Skill Share today to show you another knitting tutorial. One of my previous knitting tutorials here on Skill Share was one where it shows you cast on methods from beginner to advanced. What I wanted to do in this class is add on to that, but now instead show you different cast off methods or bind off methods. In this class, I'm going to be taking you through four different bind off methods from beginner to advanced. Going through each one of the ones that I'm going to be showing you. The first one is something called a simple or a basic bind off. It's one you may have seen before where you it one stitch, then pass the previous stitch up over and off we put as our base level. And then each one after that is going to become a bit more advanced but also add a lot of stretch to your work. The next one I'm going to be showing you is very similar to the base basic cast off method. Jenny, surprisingly stretchy bind off, where we just add in a simple yarn over in between each bind off. That way we can add extra stretch to that cast off edge. After that, we're going to move into our sewn bind offs. First we're going to work just a simple sewn bind off as method three. Then last up, if you're looking for the perfect castoff method for your ribbing, you may be interested in something like the tubular bind off, which will be method four for each one of these different bind off methods. I'm going to be showing you a scale where I rank everything from beginner all the way up through advance. Then I'm also going to give you the notes on how stretchy the bind off is. Depending on what you're working on, you may want more or less stretch. Now, a few things I want to know before we begin. Be sure to hit follow next to my name down below. That way you stay up to date each time I upload a new class here on skill share. Also, I would love to know everyone's favorite bind off methods down the discussion thread. Down below, all you have to do is click on discussion and then type in your favorite one. I'd love to see everyone's projects and what they're using these cast off methods for now. One last thing to note here is the materials you need for this project. What I've done is I have knit a set of swatches. What I mean by swatches are just little rectangles of knit work. In terms of my swatches, I have three swatches that are knit in. Just stock net knitting on the front side, pearling on the back side. Each one of these I cast on 20 stitches. Then I worked up for about 4 ". Now what you want to do once you finish each Swatch is I just put the top edge of stitches on a piece of waste yarn and put it off to the side. That way I could use my knitting needle to make the work next swatch. And then once I'm ready to work each bind off, I just pick up another swatch, take the waste yarn out as I'm slotting it back onto a knitting needle. Again, three stock in. Then down here at the bottom, I have my two ribbing swatches. I also cast on 20 stitches going across work, knit one pearl, one ribbing, and then I worked up for about 4 ". Now the yarn shown here is just a simple worsted weight yarn and all these were knit on a size US eight knitting needle. Once you've created your Swatches, you're all ready to get started. Let's start with that basic cast. 2. Method 1: Basic Cast Off: Now the first method I'm going to be showing you is a classic cast off method. There are a lot of different things. People call it, I've heard it called the basic, the simple, the regular cast off. It's the cast off method where you it one stitch, then you press the previous stitch off. That'll be your first method. The pros of this method are that it's incredibly beginner friendly. This will be the first time we're using that scale to show from beginning to advanced. This one definitely is the most beginner friendly. Downside to this method though, is that it doesn't provide too much stretch across the top edge. You want to use this for projects where essentially the project doesn't require a lot of stretch along that edge. It is a really nice clean even look. Oftentimes it looks very similar to if you do something like a backward loop cast on this castoff method matches that cast on really nicely. Now the sample you want to have in front of you to start off this video is you want one of your stock its watches where you're about to cast off across the right side of your work. Now the first cast off I'm going to be showing you here is probably one of the most popular cast off methods that used is where you knit one stitch, then it a second stitch past the previous one up, over and off. I don't even know if there's really an official name for this one. I just refer to it usually as like a simple cast off. Now, first up, just start this one and set it up. I'm going to it the first stitch. It doesn't really matter if you have the right side of your work facing you or the wrong side now I'm going to it the second stitch now I'm going to pass the previous stitch, the one closest to my right hand. Using my left knitting needle, I pull that one up over and off of my second stitch. Now the repeat can begin. I'm going to knit one stitch. Now, take the previous one, using that left knitting needle, I pull it up over. Sometimes I pull on the actual yarn as well, to keep that second stitch on my knitting needle. Slide it up over and off. Repeat begins again, knit one slide the previous up, over and off. What I like to do here, just to make sure that it doesn't end up being too tight along this edge, is I make sure that before I knit my next one, I just gently pull this right knitting needle out a bit, just that the loop loosens. Now I'm going to go into my next stitch, knit it previous stitch over and off again. Loosen that stitch a little bit, knit the next previous stitch up over and off. Now I'm going to continue going, working that repeat all the way across this top edge. Now as I get to the end here, I'm going to knit the final stitch that's on my left knitting needle past the previous stitch up, over and off. Now with the one remaining stitch on my knitting needle, I pull that so that the loop becomes nice and large. Now I'm going to thread my yarn through that loop. You can cut your yarn first too, if you'd like. Let me thread it through first. Pull that to secure, Now I can cut my yarn, leaving a bit of a tail to weave in later. This appear at the top is my first cast off method. We can look at the stretch here. This is going to be the one that I'm going to compare all the other castoff methods to. Now that I've shown you the first castoff method, we're going to be able to use this castoff to compare the rest of the methods we're doing too. Next step we're going to add in a little bit of an extra step there to give that edge a little bit of extra stretch. What I'm going to be showing you in method two is Jenny, surprisingly stretchy bind off. 3. Method 2: Jeny's Surprisingly Stretchy Bind Off: Now next step we're going to be working Jenny's surprisingly stretchy bind off. Going back to our scales from beginning to advance. The great thing about this cast off method is that it is very beginner friendly. I put it just above the previous one, a little bit more advanced. The only reason I'm upping it a little bit is because we're adding in one extra step in between each cast off, which is the yarn over. Now in terms of stretch, this one does add a lot of extra stretch to that cast off edge. So you can see I could stretch the edge almost more than I can the knitting itself very stretchy in terms of our scale there. What you're going to want to have in front of you to begin this castoff method to follow along with me is one of your stock in It samples where you're about to cast off across the right side of your work. The next cast off method I'm going to be showing you is Jenny's surprisingly stretchy bind off. In this bind off method, what she's done is she's created something very similar to that original castoff method. But she introduces a yarn over in between each one of those knit stitches, which just makes the top edge a bit stretchier. Let's look at how this would be worked now. First up, we're still going to knit our first stitch. Now this is where we want to introduce in the yarn over. I'm going to take my yarn from the back of my work to the front of my knitting needle, going up over my knitting needle back to the back again. Now it looks like I have my knit stitch, and then just a loop, I'm going to knit the next stitch. Now instead of just sliding the previous stitch up over and off, I want to take my left knitting needle and I'm going to slide the yarn over and that previously knit stitch up over and off the third loop there. Now what I have to do next is I have to begin the repeat. The repeat is I'm going to make a yarn over. I'm going to bring my yarn to the front, then bring it to the back again. Knit one more stitch. Now I'm going to slide the previous two using this left knitting needle up, over and off. And I do, again, tug on my working yarn just to make sure I don't lose that third loop yarn over knit one slide the previous two loops over and off. Just for consistency, I am casting all of these off on the right side of my work. Now I'm going to continue across this top edge. Now as I get here to the end, I'm still going to work my last stitch the same way. Press past the previous two loops, up over and off. Now for this last stitch, I'm going to stretch it out. Then again, I'm going to thread my yarn through this loop. First, let me cut my yarn here. Now I'm going to thread that tail. This top is now my cast off. You can really just tell how stretchy this is. Honestly, you could stretch this more than the work itself. Here's a comparison of those two cast off edges. You can see the cast off edge is just a little bit bulkier up here from the Jenny's one. There's it from the front, then from the back. Now as you can see from the comparison I just showed you, that extra yarn over really adds a lot of stretch to that cast off edge. Next step, we're going to be moving into a different category of cast offs. These are all ones that are called son bind offs or so castoffs, where we need a tapestry needle in order to complete that top edge. Next step we're going to be moving into a different category of castoffs, which are all ones where we need a tapestry needle in order to sew across that top edge. First I'm going to be showing you a simple method called the sew bind off. Then we'll get to our most advanced method across all thumb and method four, which is the tubular bind off. 4. Method 3: Sewn Bind Off: Now we're going to be working method three, which is one of those cast off methods where we need to tap of street needle. This method is called the sewn bind off. What you want to have in front of you is again one of your stock nets, watches. And we're about to cast off across the right side of our work. Now before we get cast off, we're actually going to need to cut our yarn. We'll measure out how much we need before we need to cut. Then we're going to cut our yarn and use our tap of stre needle to bind off across the edge. In terms of our beginner to advance scale, I would put this one, let's say, maybe a bit more advanced than the previous ones just because it does have an idea where you have to cut the yarn in advance and then also using a tapestry, you'll addit it. But it is still definitely very beginner friendly. It's a very simple free peat to continue across. In terms of stretchiness, this is a very nice and stretchy edge. It does curl a little bit. I label that as one of the drawbacks here. But again, the stretch is nice. Definitely a pro, Let's get started now. The next few cast off methods that I'm going to show you are all son methods. What that means is that you need a tapestry needle and you're going to have to cut your yarn before you begin the cast off. For this simple sown bind off, I recommend you have about three to four times the width of your fabric. I usually do four just because I always get nervous. I'm just going to measure out about four loops there and cut my yarn. Now I'm going to thread my tapestry needle. Now, it's just a simple two step process. First, you want to take your tapestry needle through the first two stitches on your knitting needle at the same time, Pearl wise. Then you want to take your tapestry needle through the first stitch knit wise. Once you slide it through that first stitch knit wise, you're going to slide that first stitch off of your knitting needle. That's actually all there is to it now. I'm going to repeat that again. I'm going to go through my first two stitches Pearl wise, then I'm going to go through my first stitch knit wise, slide the first stitch off of my knitting needles to Pearl wise. First stitch knit wise, slide it off. I'm going to continue repeating this all the way across my stitches and I'll show you what it looks like as I get towards the end. Currently, this is what my top edge is looking like. Now on these last two stitches, I'm going to continue the pattern as far as I can and I'm just going to go pearl wise through this final stitch. Now there is my top cast off edge. Let me make sure I show it to you. All the way from the front. It creates a really nice clean edge. It rolls over pretty nicely to the other side of my work, Checking for the stretchiness. This one's really quite stretchy. The nice thing about it is it's not like rippling at all, for example, what I mean on the next one, I'll show you the next one. The stone bind off or the tubular bind off here. This one is really nice for ribbing, but what you may find is when you stretch it, it can keep a different shape. Whereas this one, when I'm stretching it, it does roll a little bit, but it's not actually taking on a different shape. And it's not like creating that wavy look. Stretches an equal amount, if not more to the actual fabric or the net stitch is below it. One more time, a little zoomed in, look the front and the pearl side. 5. Method 4: Tubular Bind Off Using 2 Knitting Needles: Now, I hope you're already for method four. Method four is the tubular bind off. This one is definitely the most advanced one. I'm going to be showing you throughout the four methods. Now why people love this method so much is it's great for it. One pearl, one ribbing. What it does is it continues that it one pearl, one ribbing up over that top edge to the other side. Essentially, it just looks like the ribbing is all just one piece. Now, you may have noticed that I split method four into two separate videos to show you two different methods to achieve the tubular bind off. Now the first method, and what I'm showing you in this current video, is where we're going to divide our stitches between two knitting needles. We have the stitches on two knitting needles, we're going to work the Kitchener stitch to bind off that top edge. Now that method works really well if you have a smaller piece of work that you're working with, because then it becomes a little bit easier to divide between two knitting needles. But let's say you're working across a larger edge, right? A larger edge of knit. One, pearl and ribbing the bottom of a sweater, something like that. In that case, you probably don't have enough room on two knitting needles to divide between the two and kitchen stitch. I'm going to show you a method where you leave all the stitches on one knitting needle and the stitch becomes a little bit more complicated than the one I'm showing you in this video. But it's still definitely doable in terms of stretch, these two bind offs. And both this video and the next video where I show you the two different methods have equal stretch. No worries about the comparison between the two methods. The top edge is incredibly stretchy, I would say. The one drawback to this method is sometimes you can get a wavy shape across that top off, across the bind off edge if you stretch it out too much. That's why below where it says stretch. In the reading there's a picture of a wave just to warn you that if you stretch it out too far, you can end up with a bit of a wavy pattern. If you play with your work a little bit, you can get it to go away a bit. But definitely something to note with this method, if it stretches too far, there's a bit of a flaw. Now what you want to have in front of you for both of these two videos is you want to have your samples of knit one per one ripping. You want to be ready to work across either side of your work, right side or wrong side. Now, the last method I'm going to be showing you here is a tubular bind off. This is something called a sewn bind off as well. Where we're going to be using a tapestry needle to sew the stitches on our knitting needle and bind them off as we go across. Now the fabric I'm working with is this is my knit on pearl one ripping, it's an even number of stitches. It starts with knit one, then pearl one going all the way across. Essentially, this binduf method is the exact same thing as Kitchener stitch. Just instead of steaming together a front and a back piece, something like a sock toe. What we're now steaming together is like the knit stitch to the pearl stitch, then the knit stitch to the pearl stitch going across in that direction. I'm going to show this two different ways. The first way is very doable. If you have a smaller piece you're working with, right, maybe it's a sleeve cuff, something like that. Where you have the ability to divide your knitting into one knitting needle with all the knit stitches and a second knitting needle with all the pearl stitches. That'll be the first method I show you. Then in the next video after this, I'll show you another method where you can leave all the stitches on your knitting needle as they appear here. And it's just a bit more complicated of a sewing pattern. For this method where we're going to divide our stitches between the two knitting needles, I want to keep all the knit stitches on one knitting needle and again the pearl stitches on another. I'm actually going to start off with a piece of waste yarn here and I'm going to thread the waste yarn onto a tapestry needle. Then I need a second knitting needle. It doesn't have to be the case that it's a circular knitting needle. You can use a straight knitting needle as well. Now, each one of these knit stitches I'm going to pass over to my other knitting needle. Then each one of the pearl stitches, I'm going to hold that knit stitch in front. I'm going to slide the pearl stitch onto the waist yarn and hold it in the back. Now next up I have a knit stitch, put it on the knitting needle, hold it in front, pearl stitch, slide it onto the waist yarn, hold it in back all the way across my stitches. Okay. Now I have them divided up and all I'm going to do is first I'm going to pass these knit stitches back over to my original knitting needle now going from left towards the right. Perfect. Now I need to pick back up the stitches on the waste yarn. So I want to take my second kneading needle point and going from the left towards the right, I'm going to pick up each one of those stitches. Great. Now I'm going to take out my waist yarn. It's now set up where all the knit stitches on my front knitting needle. All the pearl stitches are on my back knitting needle. Now I need to cut my yarn. Now, I've heard a bunch of different ways to estimate this different distance or how much yarn you need to actually work the cast off. I always like to have way extra yarn just so I don't run out. I'm just going to fold it across. Let's say about six times here or three times total, then we'll use that. The steps I'm about to show you are the exact steps of the Kitchener stitch. First, I'm going to go pearl wise through the first stitch on my front knitting needle, but leave it on your knitting needle. Then I'm going to go knit wise through the first stitch on my back knitting needle. I'm going underneath the front knitting needle to get there to slide it through knit wise, leave that stitch on my back knitting needle. Those are my two set up stitches. Now the four stitch or four movement repeat begins. I'm going to go knit wise through the first stitch on my front knitting needle. Then I'm going to slide that off of my front knitting needle, Pearl wise, through the new first stitch on my front knitting needle. Leave that on my front knitting needle, pearl wise, through the first stitch on my back knitting needle. Slide that stitch off of my back knitting needle. Now through the new first stitch on my back knitting needle, leave that stitch on the back knitting needle. Now the repeat begins again, knit wise, through the first stitch on the front knitting needle, slide that stitch off pearl through the new first stitch on the front knitting needle, leave that stitch on pearl wise through the first stitch on the back knitting needle. Slide that stitch off of the back knitting needle, knit wise through the new first stitch on the back knitting needle. Leave that on the back knitting needle and I'll show it one more time here. You should already be able to see that cast off beginning. We're going to go knit through the first stitch on the front knitting needle slide that stitch of pearl through the new first stitch on the front knitting needle, leave that stitch on pearl through the first stitch on the back knitting needle. Slide that stitch off knit wise through the first stitch on the back knitting needle, leave that stitch on. Now I'm going to continue working that four movement repeat all the way across the remainder of my stitches and I'll show you what I do once I get over here to the other side. Now I just finished a full repeat of those four different movements. Now I just have one stitch left on the front and one on the back. What I'm going to do is I'm just going to do essentially as much of the pattern as I could. I'm going to go into the first stitch on the front knitting needle, knit wise, slide that one off, then there is nothing else to do on the front knit needle, so I'm just going to that then I'm going to go through the first stitch on the back knitting needle or the only stitch remaining, Pearl wise, and then slide that one off. Now I've gone all the way across that top edge doing this son bind off. You could tell it's very stretchy. What it's doing is it looks really cool because it's actually continuing the knit stitch on the one side of the work to match up with the pearl stitches or the knit stitches on this side. It's almost like it like curves over to the other side. That's what I really like about this cast off. Is it stretchy? It definitely is fairly stretchy. I would say it stretches just about as much as the work does. You will notice, I don't know what the right word for this would be like. It ripples a little bit, goes up and down, especially when it is stretched out a lot. Then it goes back to its normal form again once you stretch out the work a bit. But it definitely does create a really beautiful cast off edge. Especially if you don't want anything that's too tight, but also that isn't like too loose at the same time. And it blends in really nice to the fabric. 6. Method 4: Tubular Bind Off on 1 Knitting Needle: In the previous video, I showed you how to do the tubular bind off, but where we divide the stitches between two knitting needles. In this one I'm going to show you the steps, the set up, and the repeat you'd have to do if you wanted to keep all your stitches on the same knitting needle. It starts out the same. I am going to cut my yarn. Leave me a nice and long tail step. There's two set up stitches or set up movements. I'm going to take my tapestry needle and I'm going to go through the first stitch, pearl wise. Just pulling my yarn through. I'm going to leave it on my knitting needle. Now, next step I need to wrap my yarn around this stitch. I'm going to do that by going to the back with my tapestry needle and then inserting my tapestry needle in between the first and the second stitch, threading it through. Now I'm going to go through the second stitch knit wise, that was our set up movement. Now the repeat is going to begin. The first thing in the repeat is I'm going to go through the first stitch wise. Now I'm going to slide that stitch off of my knitting needle. Now I'm going to go into the second stitch, the new second stitch, pearl wise, the one that appears as knit down below. As I'm going across, you'll see I keep on unfolding my work so it doesn't get too tight and start folding over on itself. Third movement is I'm going to go through the first stitch. Pearl wise, slide that stitch off of my knitting needle. Now again, I need to wrap my yarn around this first stitch. I'm going to go back behind, then take my tapestry needle in between the first and second stitch, pull the yarn through, then go into my new second stitch. And I'm going to show that whole repeat about two more times. Now the repeat begins, I'm going to knit the first stitch, and then I'm going to slide that stitch off of my knitting needle. I'm going to pearl the new second stitch. Now I'm going to perl first stitch and I'm going to slip that first stitch off of my knitting needle. Now I need to wrap around the first stitch in between the first and the second stitch going from the back to the front. Then knit into my new second stitch. That was the full repeat. Now you can see it's starting to begin, It should look like knit stitches start on the front and then they continue perfectly over onto the back of your work. Just show one more time. I'm going to knit the first stitch, slide that stitch off of my knitting needle, Pearl the new second stitch, pearl the first stitch, slide the first stitch off of my knitting needle, wrap my iron around, go to the back in between the first and the second stitch, slide the tapestry needle through, and then knit the new second stitch. And so I'm going to continue going all the way across and then I'll show you what I do over here. At the end, when I end up with just a few stitches remaining, I just finished a repeat and I just had the two stitches left. So I'm just going to do as many of the movements as I can with those two stitches remaining. First, I'll knit the first stitch, I'll slide it off. I can't pearl the new second stitch. All I can do is pearl the first stitch and then slide it off my knitting needle. I just went all the way across that edge. In comparison, we have the two. This was the one where I divided between the two knitting needles. I did already stretch this one, so you can see it's rippling a little bit. This is the one I just created. They are both the same cast off, and you can see it very stretchy as well. When you do stretch it out, the same thing does tend to happen where it does get that wavier pattern, but it is definitely incredibly stretchy, stretchier than the fabric is itself. Those two methods are really interchangeable. It's just whatever your preference is for the way you cast off. 7. Let me know you favorite method in the Discussion below!: Thank you so much for joining me today. As we've been through those four bind off methods, please let me know your favorite down below in the discussion thread. I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts on the different ones and what you're using these bind offs for in your projects. Be sure to also click the Follow button next to my name down below. That way you'll be updated each time I upload a new video here on Skill Share. I'll see you next time.