Welcome to this Arnall-Culliford Knitwear tutorial on joining the ends of i-cord.
This tutorial is part of our Something To Knit Together series,
and it shows you how to join the ends of the i-cord edging that you've been working on the edge of
your Bonhomie Wrap, but you could equally use it for any situation where you're
joining the ends of two sets of i-cord stitches.
So when you come to the end of the pattern, you've got six stitches remaining on your needles,
and you've worked an extra two rows just on these last three stitches and that just gives
you a little bit of extra cord to take you round the corner.
So the first job is to arrange your stitches so that they're on two needles instead of one
and so we're going to slip three onto one double point, and three onto the other.
If you've had your stitches on straight needles then you
may need to pop them onto a double point so that you end up with your yarn at the right end.
And you've gone from having six stitches on two needles.
You're then going to fold your work so that the right side is on the outside.
And you've got the right side outermost and the working yarn is attached to the stitch
at the tip end of the needle.
And the working yarn is also attached to the rear needle.
So I have cut my end and threaded it onto a blunt tapestry needle
And I'm going to do this sort of setup section on the first stitch on the front
and then the first stitch on the rear. And on the front needle you go through that first
stitch as if you were going to purl,
and you pull the yarn through,
and then on the rear needle you're going to go through the stitch as if you were going to knit
and pull the yarn through. So in the set up section you leave both of
those stitches on your needles, because essentially you go through each stitch twice.
Once you've been through it twice, it can come off.
And now we're going to work our pattern:
Our pattern is knit slip purl on the front and purl slip knit on the back.
So we take our tapestry needle through knitwise on the front needle first stitch,
and slip off
and then purlwise through the second stitch, and leave it on.
That was knit slip purl on the front,
and then on the back we're going to go purl, slip off, knit through the next stitch
and all the time your working yarn needs to stay below the needle, so you don't
end up with it going over the top and looking like a stitch.
That would be confusing!
So I'll do that pattern once more. So you go through the first stitch
on the front needle knitwise and you're going to slip it off.
and you go through the next stitch on the front needle purlwise and leave it on.
And then on the rear needle you go through the first stitch purlwise and slip it off
And then the next stitch you go through knitwise and leave it on.
You are just grafting the two sets of stitches together.
Once you've done that little pattern twice, you've only got one stitch remaining on each needle.
So the first one you go through knitwise and slip it off,
and the rear one purlwise and slip it off.
And pull your yarn through.
Now if you look at the join section now it looks like an absolutely terrible mess!
Don't worry, that's quite normal, because we've done it quite loosely, and all
we're going to do now is take those loose strands and just tighten them up.
So here's the first one just give it a little tug so that the stitches all
settle down and then the next one: pull that. We're tugging the yarn towards the
front, because that's where our end is. There is the next loop – tug, tug, tug.
And you can pull it then through. And if you then look you've got your V's of your stitches going neatly
all the way along both sides. Now your yarn is now at the front of your work,
which is obviously not where you want it, so you just take it through to the back.
That's now nice and tidy on the front. Oh, very pleasing!
And then on the back here, you can just weave in your end. I'm just going to do it on the edge here.
You can go up into the i-cord of course.
I'm quite happy to have it on the rear of my stocking stitch. That's fine.
Give it a tug to make sure you haven't pulled the tension off,
and there you go! You've joined the ends of your i-cord edging.
I do hope you found that tutorial helpful.
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