tutorial: knitting a bobble cast-on

Bobble cast-on tutorial by La Visch Designs - www.lavisch.com

In the series of decorative ways to cast-on a knitting project, I present here the bobble cast-on method. You’re probably already familiar with bobbles as a way to give an interesting 3D texture to your knitting. I used it myself for that purpose in my Moerbei shawl design. It is also possible to make bobbles right on the cast-on edge. Officially, the bobble cast-on is not a “real” cast-on method, because you already cast-on and knit a row before you start the actual bobbles. However, this should not spoil the fun!

To be honest, the only difference between regular bobbles and the bobbles with a bobble cast-on, is that they are knit on the edge of the work. There are many different types of bobbles possible for this application, however, you want a reasonably “fat” bobble for the best result.

In short an instruction for such a bobble would be as follows:

Bobble of 5 stitches: Work [k1, yo, k1 , yo, k1] all in the same st. Turn work, p1, p1 tbl, p1, p1 tbl, p1. Turn and k5. Turn work, and p5. Turn work, k5, * pass second st on the right hand needle over the first stitch; rep from * until 1 st remains – 1 bobble made.

Below I’ll show you step by step how this looks when used at the cast-on edge of your knitting.

Knitting a bobble cast-on step by step

1. Cast-on the required number of stitches, here I used a multiple of 4 + 1 + 2×2 edge stitches for both sides of the work. The 4 stitches consist of 1 stitch for every bobble and 3 stitches distance between each bobble. To cast-on I used the knitted-on method, but any other method would work.

Bobble cast-on tutorial by La Visch Designs - www.lavisch.com

2. Purl 1 row and turn the work.

Bobble cast-on tutorial by La Visch Designs - www.lavisch.com

3. Knit 2 stitches for the edge to the side.

Bobble cast-on tutorial by La Visch Designs - www.lavisch.com

4. Work [k1, yo, k1 , yo, k1] all in the next stitch, without sliding it off prematurely. You now have 7 stitches on the right hand needle, we will knit the bobble over 5 of them.

Bobble cast-on tutorial by La Visch Designs - www.lavisch.com

5. Turn work, p1, p1 tbl, p1, p1 tbl, p1. The “p tbl” stitches are worked to close up the yo’s of the previous row. This will make the outside surface of the resulting bobble smoother, this may require some practice!

Bobble cast-on tutorial by La Visch Designs - www.lavisch.com

6. Again turn your work and knit 5 stitches.

Bobble cast-on tutorial by La Visch Designs - www.lavisch.com

7. Next, turn work and purl 5 stitches.

Bobble cast-on tutorial by La Visch Designs - www.lavisch.com

8. Turn work again and knit 5 stitches.

Bobble cast-on tutorial by La Visch Designs - www.lavisch.com

9. Now pass the second stitch on the right hand needle over the first stitch, repeat this until only 1 of the 5 bobble stitches remains. There are now only 3 stitches left on your right hand needle. You have now created one bobble! You can push it out a bit to the right side of the work to show it to its best advantage.

Bobble cast-on tutorial by La Visch Designs - www.lavisch.com

10. Next knit the 3 stitches which I had chosen as the distance between the bobbles.

Bobble cast-on tutorial by La Visch Designs - www.lavisch.com

11. Repeat steps 4 to 10 until only 3 stitches remain on the left hand needle.

Bobble cast-on tutorial by La Visch Designs - www.lavisch.com

12. Repeat steps 4 to 9 once more for the last bobble and finish with knit 2 for the second set of edge stitches.

Bobble cast-on tutorial by La Visch Designs - www.lavisch.com

With this your bobble cast-on is finished!

This is how it looks after a few more rows in stockinette have been knit.

Bobble cast-on tutorial by La Visch Designs - www.lavisch.com

Pretty, isn’t it?

Stay tuned for the tutorial on the matching bobble bind-off!