Welcome to this Arnall-Culliford Knitwear tutorial on the two-colour alternating
long tail cast on. This video is part of our Boost Your Knitting series. 12 projects
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the 2 color alternating long tail cast on is a really clever way of setting up
stitches in alternating colors alternating knits and pearls so for
example you could use it as a cast on as we have for a double knitting project
wherein your first row you're going to want lips in one color alternating with
pearls in the opposite color but you could also use it for a corrugated rib
or all sorts of other situations the two color alternating long tail cast on sets
up alternating stitches in two colors in a knit purl arrangement so we need to
start with two ends of yarn and we're going to loosely knot them together so
that we can untie the knot and weave in our ends later and we're going to leave
a bit of an end to weave in we're then going to hold that knot over the needle
that you're going to cast on to and we're going to have the yarn for the
knit stitches to the rear and the yarn for the purl stitches to the front and
I'm going to set this up in the same way as I would set up for a long tail cast
on which is to put your index finger underneath the knit yarn and your thumb
underneath the pearl yarn and then you use your remaining stitches remaining
stitches remaining fingers even to grasp the ends of the yarn so I like to think
about this as launch position and I'm making a Wye shape
with the needle and the two strands of yarn being the arms of the white or it's
a bit like a catapult if we were going to be cheeky and ping something over
there so I've got the knit yarn on the right
and the purl yarn on the left and we cast on the first stitch as a knit
stitch and we do that as I would for a normal longtail cast on so we bring the
needle tip across to the left hand side a little bit to make this loop on the
thumb and we're going to go underneath with the needle tip and up through the
loop and we're then going to come down over that knit yarn the yellow in my
case and we're going to pull that yellow lock yarn through the loop on my thumb I
now take my thumb out and tighten up the stitch and I come back to my launch
position I'm now going to cast on a purl stitch and I do that by moving over
towards the right a little bit so that I can see this loop on my index finger I'm
going to come up through the loop as I did before and this time I'm going to go
down in the middle between the two yarns and underneath the red yarn and I'm
going to pull that red yarn through the loop on my index finger and tighten it
up so I've now got a knit stitch in the yellow yarn and a purl stitch in the red
yarn and we need to keep alternating that process so we come back to our
catapult position over to the left a little bit to do the knit stitch we come
up through the loop on the thumb down over the yarn on the index finger and
pull that index finger yarn through the loop let go of the loop and gently
tighten it up and then we go back to launch position we now go slightly to
the right up through the loop on the index finger
down between and underneath the red yarn which is going to be the purl stitch and
then pull that pearl yarn through the loop on the index finger
let go of the loop and tighten it let's go again back to the middle to the left
up through the red yarn down over the yellow yarn scoot through the loop let
go of the loop and tighten it up and now back to the middle over to the right up
through the loop down in between the two and underneath the red yarn pull it
through the loop on the index finger and tighten it up and we continue that
process for as many stitches as you need on your needles this is a great way to
cast on for double knitting because obviously in double knitting we need the
knit stitches in this case for the front of the fabric and the purl stitches for
the rear but it would also be a great way to cast on before a corrugated rib
or any other situation where you want alternating knit purl stitches in
alternating colors and you can obviously end after either a knit stitch or a purl
stitch depending on what you need your pattern once you've cast on as many
stitches as you like you can obviously start working in pattern and you can see
that the knot is here it might be over your needles mine's slipped around you
can just slip that loop off your needles and untie the knot and make sure you've
got your first knit stitch they're all safe and sound ready to go thank you for
watching our video on the two color alternating longtail cast on I hope you
feel confident now in giving it a go on one of your own projects if you'd like
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