I-Cord Bind Off

you're gonna find i-cord bind-offs in a lot of west knit shawls i use this technique because it gives a really round and smooth frame to your shawl borders and it's also quite stretchy so you don't have to worry about your bind off being too too tight so bind off in the same color that you're knitting with or we got to embrace our color opportunities and you can use a color pop to do that same icord bind off technique and let's dive in and learn how to do it the i-cord bind-off is going to add a really smooth edge to finish your shawl or sweater like this royal blue i-cord bind-off in the wavy wiggles shawl i'm going to show you on this regular garter stitch swatch with regular edges first and then look at this swatch it already has i-cord edges we'll work on that next so if you're working with the pattern that says cast on three stitches using the cable cast on method you're gonna do this dive into the middle between stitch one and stitch two to cast on one and then you're gonna dive between those two stitches to cast on two and dive in between the middle of those stitches to cast on three that was cable cast on three times now knit two stitches knit two together through the back loop slip three stitches onto left needle and repeat knit two knit two together through the back and slip them on to the left needle knit two knit two together through the back loop this is how most of my i-cord bind-offs are worked sometimes in patterns you might see a slip slip knit where you knit two slip slip knit slip knit wise slip knit wise knit two together through the back slip them onto the left needle knit two slip slip knit slip slip then knit them through the back so whichever way is easiest for you both of those work so you can do the knit two together through the back or the slip slip knit slip slip knit it all works and you're soon going to start to see this beautiful i-cord edge to finish your project what if you already have i-cord stitches at the left and right edges of your project well the pattern will just say to knit two and then knit two together through the back slip those three stitches onto the left needle and repeat knit two knit two together through the back and slip just keep repeating that all the way until you reach the end of the row again sometimes it depends on the pattern some i-cords will say to knit two and then slip slip knit knitwise knitwise two together through the back knit two [Music] let's try it with a slip slip knit slip slip knit those two together whatever you do just do the same thing they will both look pretty much the same and some patterns bind off on the right side and some bind off on the wrong side the great thing about this pattern like the wavy wiggles is it's reversible so it looks really nice and smooth on the right side and the wrong side here is the i-cord bind-off on the rockefeller shawl it is so smooth and even so just keep repeating that over and over until you reach the end of your row and some patterns like vertices unite look at this there's i-cord around the entire perimeter of this color-blocked shawl so it works with the same technique you have all of these stitches around the edge of your shawl and then you work those i-cord rows to make that crisp clean finish to your shawl alright that's looking pretty good i'm binding off and what if the pattern says to do that i-cord bind-off until six final stitches remain well it's going to look like this you're going to have three i-cord stitches on your right needle and three i-cord stitches on your left needle if you have that i-cord edge in your project so the pattern says graft the remaining six stitches together you're gonna break the yarn and then this right needle is going to go like this so it points to the right and the left needle you need to reverse the order of those three stitches so that both needle tips are facing the same direction and the purl bumps of those three stitches are kissing each other so you're looking at the knit knit stitches on the outside so i broke the tail of yarn you're going to pop that onto a tapestry needle and graft those six stitches together go through the first stitch on the front needle purlwise go through the back needle that first stitch knit wise now you're going to go through the first stitch on the front needle knit wise off go through the next stitch on the front purl wise leave it on now with the back needle you'll go through the first stitch purlwise and take it off the needle and the next stitch on the back needle knit wise leave it on front needle knit wise off front needle the next stitch go through it purl wise leave it on the back needle purlwise take it off and go through the next back needle stitch knit wise leave it on and to finish we're going to go through the front needle stitch knitwise and the back needle stitch purlwise and that's going to graft those remaining six stitches together with kitchener stitch making a really nice rounded corner to finish your i-cord frame weave in those ends and this will be the last step to finish your project a lot of my shawls finish with that technique grafting the last stitches together and here's the i-cord bind-off it's quite stretchy and nice if you feel like it's too tight you might want to go up a needle size to do that bind-off but see how it feels once you bind off like 10 stitches see if it's really really tight it should have about this much stretch not too much not too little just right we'll give that i-cord bind off some practice it's really smooth really crisp and remember if you think you're running out of yarn near the end of your project that i-cord bind off it's not a problem to run out of yarn it's a color opportunity okay so grab a new color bind off with the color pop and call it done all right i'm gonna make a lot more technique videos that you can watch they're linked down below and you can subscribe to my channel to catch all the latest inspiration here in the west knit studio i'll see you in the next one

Channel: Stephen West

Views: 16,675

Rating: 4.9825897 out of 5

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Id: uuGAc-6RetY

Length: 8min 13sec (493 seconds)

Published: Mon May 24 2021