Unusual binding off technique

How-to Questions
1

I’m what I would call an intermediate-level knitter. I sometimes develop my own patterns, usually knit other people’s patterns.

Here’s my question:

I have a sweater – commercially knitted – that I inherited from my mother. It’s getting a bit tatty. But I love it dearly, so I want to “reverse engineer” it – that is, try to knit a sweater as much like it as possible.

Luckily, it’s a pretty simple design – non-set-in sleeves, mostly stockinette, with some ribbing and garter stitch accents. Pretty easy to copy, really.

But the bind-off at the bottom has me stumped. Just looking closely at it, it looks like rather than casting off, they drew a crocheted chain through the loops on the last row. Is this an established technique? Does it have a name? Has anyone ever done this? Is there anything I need to know to do it myself?

Any enlightenment will be appreciated.

2

Here is a wonderful article about quite of few different bind offs, including some crocheted bind offs. Maybe one of them is yours.

http://knitty.com/ISSUEfall06/FEATfall06TT.html

Hope that helps.

3

Thanks. I didn’t see anything like what I believe is on this sweater, but I did see one of the techniques that would make a similar, smooth edge.

4

A lot of storebought sweaters use a tubular finish on the lower edge. You can do that as a cast on or bind off.

5

Is there a difference between casting off and binding off? I’ve always used the terms interchangeably.

6

They are interchangeable. Casting off is used in the UK and Europe more than in the US.

7

Do you have a digital camera so that you can post a photo of the edge of the sweater?

8

Oooh, yeah, a pic would be great!