Help! I am trying to make a quick gift for a little girl’s 1st birthday on Saturday.
So, I’m going to make the LTK bucket hat pattern. It instructs me to begin by casting on 160 stitches using hte long-tail method…
I have tried to cast on twice and both times I have run out of tail!!!
I could have sworn that I saw someone somewhere mention something you can do to cast ont he rest of the stitches if that happens, like a different cast-on method but it looks similar or something.
Any ideas? I could have been imagining it. I really don’t want to cast on all of these darn stitches again!!
Well, if you run out of tail, that means you didn’t pull enough out to start! But I think that the method you are referring to is cable cast on. There is a video here on KH. That might work.
There is a way to do a purl cast on to compensate for not having enough yarn for the long-tail, but I’ve yet to learn how to do it. (I’ve seen Lily Chin demonstrate it on Knitty Gritty.)
Until I learn it, and to ensure I have enough yarn for the long-tail, I wrap the yarn around the needle as many times as I need stitches. (20 wraps for 20 stitches, for example). Then I add a little extra (maybe 6 inches) just in case.
Sorry you didn’t have enough yarn for the cast-on; it’s really frustrating, I know!
When I have a lot of stitches, I use two balls–one for the strand and one for the tail. I never run out, and I just cut one when I’m done. I either felt the ends together if it’s wool, or tie the dreaded knot.
Thanks so much for that link! That’s exactly what I needed. I am impatient (obviously, or I wouldn’t have ended up with toos hort of a tail), so I went ahead and re-cast on with a much longer tail and that worked out OK.
The purling on technique rocks, though, I’ll have to remember that!
