I have seen this many times and am new to knitting so I don’t get it. I found a pattern for a baby afghan, but it calls for using circular needles. If I use circular needles, won’t I be knitting a tube? For the life of me I can’t figure out how this is supposed to be done. I will probably feel really stupid when someone posts the answer, but I really want to make this for a friend.
You use a circular needle for large things like afghans because regular needles won’t hold all those stitches. You use the circs like straights on this kind of project. Finish the row, then turn the whole thing around to work back the other way. You won’t be joining the stitches to knit in a tube.
In order to NOT join in a tube when using circular needles, start off with the needle tip that has the stitch with the working yarn in your left hand. Even if the rest of the stitches reach all the way around the circ, you will not end up joining because of where the working yarn is.