How to Bind Off & Cast Off

Video Transcript

"Hi, I’m Kelsey. I’ve been knitting for 10 years, and am a member of several knitting organizations. Once you’ve learned how to cast on and knit, at some point you’re going to have to stop. You can’t just take it off the needle or it’s going to unravel. What you have to do is the opposite of casting on, you cast off. This is also known as binding off. Just like casting on, there are a million different ways to cast off. By far the most common is the technique I’m going to show you here. When you’re casting off, It’s very similar to knitting, you go ahead and start by knitting two stitches on your right hand needle. You knit one and then knit two. Now what you’re going to do is use your left hand needle to pull this first stitch over the second. So you pull that stitch over and as you see you then get an edge that’s not going to unravel. Then you’re going to knit another stitch so you know have two on the right hand needle, and you’re going to repeat. Put the left hand needle into the first stitch and pull it over and off. Repeat, knit again, over and off. And then, when you get to the end, you will have one stitch left on the needle. So now you’ve got one stitch left on your needle. Now you’re going to want to cut the yarn. You want to leave yourself a good size tail so you can wave it in or use it to sew and connect this piece to another piece if you’re making a multi piece garment. Go ahead and cut the yarn. Now what you’re going to do is make a loop on your right hand needle, take your fingers and take that stitch and pull it up and over like your did with all the others. Then go ahead and pull that yarn thread all the way through and tighten it. Now you’ve got a nice bound off edge there with a nice attractive little knit border. That will keep it from unraveling. And that’s how you bind off."