Casting on for Abrazo

In the continuing saga of how to cast on for Abrazo, I had a talk with Danni. I gave her a all the information. We considered the pros and cons.

As far as the provisional crocheted cast on goes, sure it'd be stretchy and loose, but it would mean a whole lot of work when I was done knitting. I'd have to put all 367 stitches back on the needle and work some kind of stretchy bind off.

We considered the long tail cast on and even its cousin, the German long-tail (twisted) cast on.

I showed her my swatches. For these I cast on without a thought to stretchiness and just used my old reliable long tail cast on. We stretched them and found that my normal cast on didn't impede the stretchiness of the fabric at all. It looked like a piece of silly putty, we stretched it out so much.

I decided to try the German Cast On; it's supposed to be more elastic and a favorite of sock knitters.


It took a couple of tries and I watched a couple of other interpretations of how to work it.

Then I embarked on 367 stitches. No starting small with a new technique for me. That certainly won't bite me later.
Since I only have one skein, I used the inside and outside strand. I used markers to keep track of how many I cast on in smaller increments to keep it manageable.
At the end of the first pattern row I was extremely gratified to find that I had the right number of stitches.