Interlock Bindoff: the Back Story

Have you seen the latest? In April 2011, Interlock Bindoff was published on knitty.com. Here’s a video I just put together as a demo.


Some of you might be wondering, what gives? Why is Jeny so obsessed with stretchy bindoffs?

A couple of years ago Jeny's Surprisingly Stretchy Bindoff was published in in knitty.com. I've been thrilled with the response, for the most part. But for the most part is a key caveat. Some people hated it, which kindof kept me up at night.

The folks I know who have more publications to their name tell me not to sweat it. "No one can please everyone," they say. Which is true. But since I make my living seeing the world through the eyes of others (my clients, my students, my 2 year-old, etc.), and since I am an insatiably curious person, I decided to examine the point of view of these knitters who didn't have great experiences with JSSBO. Maybe I could learn something from this?

My primary finding of interest was that some folks disliked JSSBO's appearance.


I think it's pretty, but that's a subjective opinion. However, it's a fact that JSSBO is quite visually prominent, so I wondered if I could come up with something that was just as elastic and snapped back just as well as JSSBO, but blended into the fabric more organically. Achieving high elasticity without flare was the real challenge here.

Since most cast ons don’t seem to have the same issues as bindoffs, I approached this challenge via reverse-engineering. Deconstructing the simple loop cast on is what ultimately led me to Interlock Bindoff.


I discovered a few months ago (ironically, just a couple days before Interlock went live) that I was not the first person to explore this topic. Those of you who are familiar with the brilliant Skew sock pattern will recognize the other intrepid explorer as our very own Lana Holden, who apparently is my evil twin in many respects, not just knitting.

All this said, I hope you’ll give Interlock a try. It’s a bit more fussy than JSSBO, given that it’s sewn. But for things like socks and cuffs that don’t have a ton of stitches, it’s the one I always use now!

On to Sock Summit!

Look, look! Hey, that's me!


This summer at the Sock Summit, I will be teaching a class called "Heelix," which covers two topics:

1. Cast on and knit a heel using helix knitting,
and,
2. Knit a sock from the heel-out.

The helix heel maps a double Archimedes Spiral to a heel shape, resembling a configuration something like this.


Heel-out socks follow this sequence of events (bearing in mind that you can switch the order of #3 and #4).


Stay tuned for upcoming posts containing more detail on some of the techniques used in this class. Although I won't be posting any class content, I will share some related fundamentals that will come in handy with all kinds of knitting projects, socks and beyond!

Judy's Magic Cast On, a-la-Jeny (video demo)

New! as of 6/19 2022, here is a video demonstrating the kinetics of  the method illustrated below. 

A bit over a year ago, I posted my version of Judy's Magic Cast On, which is very similar to the traditional version except that I start on the bottom needle. My original post is here. Then sometime after that, I re-engineered the first step, to make casting on easier and to make the end result neater. In the meantime, I also got some more practice using Adobe Illustrator. So I now present to you some updated illustrations of this excellent provisional cast on brought to you by the extremely clever & creative Judy Becker. In the illustrations below, blue indicates the working yarn, held with the thumb and wrapped over the top needle. Red indicates the tail, held with the forefinger and wrapped over the bottom needle. Starting position:

Position the 2 tips of a circular cable pointing to the left, and wrap the yarn around the bottom needle like so. (This will become your first cast on stitch.) Hold the working yarn with your thumb. Hold the tail with your forefinger. Step 1: Cast on the first top stitch. Bring the working yarn up behind the bottom needle and in front of the top needle.

Now swing your hand down behind the needles, as shown by the arrow. This will bring the working yarn over and around the top needle. The result will look like this. You have now cast on two stitches: one on the bottom needle, and one on the top needle.

Step 2: Cast on the next bottom stitch. Bring the tail up in front of the bottom needle and behind the top needle.

Step 3: Cast on the next top stitch. Bring the working yarn up behind the bottom needle and in front of the top needle, just as you did in Step 1. Swing your hand down behind the needles... ...and you will have two stitches on each needle. Repeat steps 2 and 3 until you have cast on the desired number of stitches. Then you can continue to knit with your working yarn.