Looping provisional cast-on: stitch structure

I was going to explain the structure of the KYOK increase (k1, yo, k1, all in one stitch) next, but I realized I’d have an easier time of it if I first described one of the provisional cast-ons I know. Montse Stanley calls this the looping provisional cast-on in her invaluable Knitter’s Handbook; it’s called the provisional cast on in Leslie Ann Bestor’s Cast On, Bind Off. It has advantages and disadvantages as a provisional cast-on; my own favorite is the COWYAK waste yarn method. But I digress.

I am not going to provide instructions for this cast-on here; my focus is on the structure of how the yarn is looped around another cord. However, since it’s very hard to search for instructions for the looping provisional method online, here is a clear video about this cast-on from Laura Nelkin. (The actual demo starts at about 1:10. You can stop before the halfway point if all you want is to compare to the post below.) Note: you don’t have to use Stitch Saver; a circular knitting needle works just as well and then you have the stitches already on a needle to knit in the other direction. (I have not yet found clear written instructions online.)

My other stitch structure posts can be found in my stitch structure tag or from the stitch structure link at the top of this page.

I’m going to refer to two strands of yarn in this post. There is also an invisible knitting needle which I am not showing, because I think it can get in the way of seeing the structure clearly. This is less the case for this particular cast-on than for my other stitch structure posts, but I’d rather be consistent. There’s a photo of a finished row of this cast-on on the needles at the end of this post which I am providing because of the difficulty of finding written instructions online.

There is a horizontal light green strand shown in this image: it could be smooth waste yarn, a circular needle cable, or some other smooth tube. The end on the right is held together with the knitting needle (whether with a slip knot or by holding it with the right hand).

The dark green yarn is attached to a needle off-screen. There could even already be existing stitches.

Pretend that the light green yarn is the head of a knitting stitch from a previous row, which is to say, the horizontal bit at the top. If you pull a knit stitch under it, it will look like the illustration above: the two ends of the dark yarn are above and behind the light green, a dark green loop has been pulled under and then up in front of the dark green.

What happens next is a yarnover (yarnover stitch structure post), which involves wrapping the yarn around the knitting needle without involving the light green strand. Only one corner of the yarnover is secure, and that’s because of the knit stitch that was worked before it. What will secure the other bottom leg of that yarnover?

Another knit stitch! We have here a dark green knit stitch in front of the light green strand, a dark green yarnover that otherwise looks exactly like the knit stitch behind the light green strand, and another dark green knit stitch in front of the light green strand.

Things to note:

• This cast-on just keeps alternating between knit and yarnover, though it’s very rare for the instructions I’ve found to mention those words. The motions often feel different (especially if you’re used to throwing your yarn), but it is the end result.
• The yarnover in this situation doesn’t make a hole the way it would in lace; instead it looks like a knit stitch facing in the opposite direction. This is because there’s no knitting underneath the stitches on either side; it’s only acting as an increase in the sense that any cast-on stitch is. However, that doesn’t mean it’s structurally identical to a purl stitch, even though many of us are used to thinking of a purl stitch being the back of a knit stitch. If you work k1, p1, k1 over a strand of waste yarn, you’ll get a similar result to this cast-on that is not exactly the same. I will write about this in a separate blog post later.

Here is a photo of the same three stitches tightly wrapped around two needles. It superficially resembles a figure 8 cast-on, but some of the strands are not in the same place as they would be in that case. Again, I hope to write about this later

The same three stitches transferred to a smaller needle at the top and a circular needle cable at the bottom. The extra space makes it easier to see what’s happening. The first stitch is a knit stitch that has been pulled under and in front of the cable; the second stitch is a yarnover that is only wrapped around the knitting needle and not the cable below, and the third stitch is another knit stitch that has been pulled under and to the front of the cable.