Single Rake Bind off

Last night feeling tired but not sleepy I went to lay down with the TV on, but it was boring. So I grabbed out the book I bought, Mary Thomas's Knitting Book, and went to take a better read over the parts on loom knitting. Boy did I get a supprise. There is some great information, even if you have to dig a bit to get it. By dig, I mean my brain has to sit up and really take notice, not just skim over it.

For instance, even though I now know this, the book explains how to do a cord on two pegs of a loom. Neat for when you want to make something like a strap, tie back or something of that nature. If you use something besides yarn then you can get a much stronger strap.

There is a small section in the book that talks about increasing and decreasing on looms, even about how you can transfer stitches from a single rake round to a double rake to continue decreases for like the top of a hat, but for myself, I did learn this is not quite as easy as the section in the book makes it sound. It also talks about how if you are using the e-wrap stitch, you can change to the "flat", or knit stitch at the top and thus decrease the area as the knit stitch creates a much tighter weave that decreases the size of the piece.

Mary doesn't call the stitches by the names we currently use so I had to figure out just which stitch she is talking about by reading how the stitch is done. Where we call it wrapping she calls it winding the pegs. Where we have learned the "flat" or knit stitch she calls this the Plain or Closed Stitch which makes a fabric simular to an ordinary Stocking Stitch. The winding (wrapping) that we know as the e-wrap she calls the Raised Crossed Stitch which makes a fabric simular to the Crossed Stocking Stitch.

On a double rake we know a stitch called the figure eight. Mary talks about this stitch calling it the Rib In Close Stitch. I had already figured out that the figure eight is an e-wrapped stitch that forms a knit on the one side while doing a purl on the other side. You just cannot tell it that much because the stitches lay so close to each other, but try doing the figure eight skipping every other set of pegs. You will get an entirely different look to your pieces.

So if you wrap the doing the Rib In Close Stitch but do it e-wrapped or figure eight style you have a Rib In Close Raised Crossed stitch. You can do the Rib In Close Stitch by using the single stitch and have a plain stocking stitch. She shows both of these. She even has one she calls Ribbing (2 & 2) which I illustrated earlier with the pictures called K2P2 no e-wrap. On this one you are wrapping around two pegs at a time top and two pegs bottom.

Mary continues to discuss a little about color changes for vertical and horizantal stripes and then has a little section on open patterns. She says these types of stitches are good for doing something like curtains and resemble dropped stitch patterns. This section my eyes began to blur on so I have left it for another reading.

Now on to what has become at this point the best thing I learned from this reading. A new to me cast off. Oh a nice new to me cast off. This one I oosted a little about earlier today on a group and rather then try to write it all out again, I just am pasting it here:

"I just tried a new to me method of removal from a single rake, be itround, straight or oval and I like it.I say new to me because I haven't tried this before but it is not new. It came out of the Mary Thomas's Book of Knitting first published in the 1930's. She taught it this way.

At your first peg, she says peg A, where the yarn coming from the ball/skein is, wrap peg B and knit it off.Now take the stitch on peg B and move it to peg A. Knit off the bottom stitch and move the loop back to peg B. Now wrap and knit off peg C. Move C's loop to peg B and knit off. Continue in this manner till the last peg is knitted off and you have only one loop left. Remove the last loop cut and finish off.

Now I have tried this twice. The first time I snugged the stitches down as I went. Oh what a tight edge. Nice and firm and very good looking, but since I wanted something a little looser, I did it again.

The second time I didn't snug each stitch down so tight, instead leaving it a little loose on the peg. Oh it is beautiful and no crochet hook to mess with, easy and quick. I like how it looks along with the crochet method of cast on or the long tail caston (I think the long tail is easier). I have found my method of removal for the single rake. Up to this point I have not been extremely happy with any of them. The only thing I would suggest on this one is to make sure the stitches for the last row before removal are not loose, well the end ones. I didn't and I have one end stitch that is way too loose, my fault.

Oh I should have gotten into this book a bit sooner. I wouldn't have been struggling with this for so long."

Along with the loom knitting sections, Mary discusses a little loom called a Loop Knitting Loom that one is very neat. Then she has some on a peg knitting loom which when I read it I realized that this is a loom to create what I just learned as finger knitting. Way cool the neat things I have learned lately. This one is like the little stick knitting loom that provo is coming out with.