What does it mean?

I am knitting a sweater for the first time and I have come across something in my pattern that I don’t understand. The sleeves will be knit onto the sweater and I have to leave an armhole opening. I put 36 sts onto a holder and then finished knitting across. Now when I get back to that point it says " cast on 36 sts provisionally over sts on holder". Can anyone tell me how to do this?
Thanks, Mandy

If yo go to the Free Video tab at the top of this page, Cast Ons and scroll down to the provisional cast on, there’s a nice video to show you. It’s a way of saving live sts until you can go back to them and add the sleeves.

I have an alternative method for you - instead of putting the sts on a holder and casting on at the next row, knit those sts with some scrap yarn, then put them back on the left needle and continue knitting with your regular yarn. That doesn’t leave a hole, but when you’re done you would take out the waste yarn and put the sts on your needle. With this method the scrap yarn acts as both a stitch holder [B]and[/B] the provisional cast on.