Surprising. And Stretchy.
Calling all toe-up sock knitters – there’s a new bind-off in sockville that rocks so insanely hard, I can’t even believe it. As many of you know, I am a confirmed toe-upper. Cuff-down socks, to me, make no sense. They make so little sense, in fact, that of the roughly 30 pairs of adult socks I have made in 2008 and 2009, two pairs have been cuff down. TWO. And like many toe-up sock knitter, I have struggled to find the perfect cast off. It needs to be firm enough that the top of your sock isn’t all floppity, but stretchy enough that it can be comfortably pulled on and tugged off. I have used many a bind-off, but there wasn’t one that filled me with joy until the new Knitty came out, and Jeny’s Surprisingly Stretchy Bind-Off was made public.
It looks fabulous – no puckering, no weirdness. It’s easy to do, once you have the rhythm. It’s quick. It’s stretchy. It’s surprising. Try it yourself on the next project you bind off. You’ll be hooked, too.
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I just found this bind off method and love it. I just finished making my grandson a pullover and was very unhappy with the neck ribbing bind off. As we all know a childs head is larger in proportions to the rest of their bodies and sometimes the neck opening is just to small to get over the head as in the case with this sweater. I took out the old rib and bind off and redid the whole thing with this method. The new rib now stretches at least 2 more inches and still lays nice and neat on the sweater. I’m a convert!
This looks good – I appreciate the info. I had to leave a comment especially to say that I LOVE that third pic – the view from above the top of the sock. Maybe it reminds me of a box of wonky crayons.
I learned this in Cat Bordhi’s Dancing with Socks class at Sock Summit. Jeny was there! The bind off is sooooo stretchy, and so cool looking because it has “joints” where it changes from knit to purl and vice versa (top down view). It looks like a Greek key pattern!