Sheep Carousel - the bind off (s)

We're having a Knit A Long for Kate Davies' Sheep Carousel... a tea cosy packed with techniques.

After the steeks we need to fold back the flaps and stitch them down to the inside of the tea cosy.

(Fiona) I used the purple yarn and was careful to sew it to the back of the stitches (the bumps) and not the floats.

Also don't pull too tight or it could pucker.  I took the opportunity to tidy up any ragged ends too... in particular at the top of the steek.

Next step is to pick up and knit stitches around the spout and the handle holes.

I wasn't sure where to pick up the stitches... You'll see when you come to it that you have one line of purple stitches on one side and two lines on the other side.  I chose to pick up stitches so that only one line of purple stitches framed the bind off.

You can see a video here  by Knit Picks about picking up stitches.  It is rare for me to manage to pick up the 'correct' number of stitches and as usual I picked up more than recommended by Kate... 30 on the spout and 40 on the handle.  It doesn't appear to made any difference and looks straight and neat regardless.  I used 3mm double pointed needles.

The bind off instructions left me confused.  I have seen someone do one before but this was a different technique to that.  A quick google revealed this video by knittingtipsbyjudy which matched Kate's instructions and made it much clearer.

I joined the edges of the bind off using a kind of mattress stitch to make it 'look' seamless and hid all my ends inside the steek flap.

the i cord bind off

top of the i cord bind off

Next up is unzipping the provisional cast on...  I was more apprehensive about this than the steeks... the provisional cast on was the foundation for the whole tea cosy which was to all intents and purposes finished... if this went wrong I wasn't sure how I'd find the stitches again in the corrugated ribbing...

But unzipping... like most techniques on this project was actually relatively painless.  I made sure I went round backwards... unravelling the green chained stitches which I had done last and sticking my needle into the purple stitch as I pulled it loose... thus picking up the live stitch.  Be careful you don't pick up a float instead.  This happened to me a few times as my floats hung down below the green provisional stitches...

I then finished off with another i cord bind off.

all bound off

next up soaking and blocking...