Turkish Cast On

Hi All!

Today's Tutorial Tuesday is all about Turkish Cast On. This is a knitting technique that produces an invisible edge similar to the Kitchener stitch bind off when using double pointed needles. The concept can be used with other techniques for working in the round, two circular needles or magic loop as well. Turkish Cast On is really simple and fast, too!

To start, hold two double pointed needles parallel to each other and horizontally. Trap the tail of the yarn between the needles with the tail end on the other side of the needles from where you are. The yarn should be hanging to the front of the needles and down.

Wrap the yarn down and around the needles and over the top till there are the number of loops across the top as you have need of stitches for that half of the project. Let's say I want to cast on 20 total stitches, 10 to a side. I'd wrap the yarn around the needles ten times.

Then, you insert a third double pointed needle into each loop, individually, working the loops as you would any other cast on. Flip your work so that the unworked loops are now on top. There will be, in our example, 11 loops on this side. You can either drop the first loop, or work the first and second loop as one. I usually do the second method, then give the tail a little tug to firm up the stitch.

For those of you who are more visual, here's a clip from YouTube of the Turkish Cast On. This is a silent video from Drops Design. The model casts on eight stitches and drops the tail at the beginning of the second half of the round. The video ends by showing how a few rounds worked looks.  Enjoy!!