PICOT CAST ON
A picot cast on is a lovely way to make a decorative edge to your work. It’s perfect for baby patterns and shawl edgings, and is surprisingly easy to work. As long as you can do a knitted-on cast on and standard cast off you can make a picot cast on. It can be a little fiddly, so it’s easier to work with straight or circular needles, rather than double-pointed needles. If you find your picot cast on is a little loose, then go down a needle size, just for the cast-on row.
1 Make a slip knot and put it on your left needle. This is your first stitch. Insert the right needle knitwise into the stitch, and wind the working yarn around. Pull the loop through the stitch until it gets quite large, and then put it onto your left needle. Repeat Step 1 until you have 5 stitches on your left needle. 2 Knit the first 2 stitches placing them onto your right-hand needle.
3 Cast the first stitch off over the second stitch.
4 Knit the next stitch from your left needle…
5 …and then cast it off as before.
6 Slip the remaining stitch sitting on the right needle, purlwise back onto the left needle.
7 Cast on 4 stitches onto your left-hand needle.
8 Repeat Steps 2 to
7 until you have your desired number of stitches, ending after
Step 6.