I’m currently knitting the Jessie Maed “So Summer Shirt” and it’s time to cast off my sleeves.
My arm fits through the hole fine pre-castoff. However, when I cast off, even using two separate “stretchy cast off” methods it’s too small for my arm!!! I’ve done this 3-4x now and I’m losing it.
What am I missing???
Here’s the YT links for the cast off methods:
I’m going crazy and just want to finish this shirt and get it blocked. Thank you!!!
Hmm, the stretchy bind off methods would be expected to resolve the problem. Some people find these bind offs add so much stretch that they do them with a smaller needle to counter some of the stretch and give a neater finish or reduced flare.
Have you tried binding off with a larger needle? Depending what I’m making I might go up 1mm or 2mm (or even more) in needle size for the bind off and do a regular bind off. Initially it looks a bit messy as it’s worked because the stitches are bigger making it look a bit loopy as I’m doing it. But I just trust in it and keep going. At the end I give the fabric a stretch and all the stitches even out and kind of bed in to the edge.
Perhaps knit up a swatch so you don’t over work the yarn on your sweater and try out a much bigger needle, you can also combine larger needle and stretchy bind off method to see how it goes.
Mostly I would recommend not over tightening the stitches as you bind off. It can be so tempting to tidy up the yarn loops but try it on the swatch, just letting it have the full size of the needle for each stitch and not tightening anything.
My favourite stretchy bind off ( hasn’t failed me yet!) is a sewn interlock bind off. It gives the most stretch and almost no flare.
I’ve attached a link.
It can seem daunting if you’ve not done a sewn bind off before but it is straight forward and for me, it was a game changer!
You could try on a small swatch first of you don’t want to shabby up your yarn practising.
Sorry it took me so long to get back to this! But yes!! The sewn interlock bind off for me! I’m just going to do that for every pair of sleeves now! Thank you so much!
Funnily enough, the sewn bind off sleave fits great and the one that randomly sorta worked for the other arm is a little tight. But it’s all doable! Thank you so much! I’ll be using this for the rest of my projects! Such a lifesaver! 
Brilliant! So pleased that it worked for you! There’s nothing like a technique that does what it’s supposed to do 
