Technique: Turkish Cast On

There are millions of different ways to cast on socks. Even as experienced sock knitter, you might run across a new way you've never seen before. And I like to try out all possibilities. I've recently discovered the Turkish Cast On - also called Straight Wrap Cast On, Eastern European Cast On, Eastern Cast on or Mediterranean Cast On. I've been a fan of Judy's Magic Cast On for a long time, but now I'm not so sure anymore... I might like this one a tad bit more.

You'll need:

• your working yarn
• circular needle

It can be done with dpns, but I find it much easier to work with a circ. This time I'm working with Dream in Color Smoothy.

Hold both needles parallel to each other. Leaving a few inches tail, lay the yarn over the bottom needle and bring it down between the needles, wrapping it under the top needle. In the picture shown below, the yarn tail is on the left bottom side. The tail I left for this tut was way too short - I'll explain why you don't want a too short tail a little later. Alternatively, you could also start with a slip knot on the top needle.  Then, wrap the yarn around both needles as shown in the picture below.

Continue wrapping the yarn around both needles until you have the desired amount of stitches on your needles. I like to cast on 24 stitches for my toes, so I did 12 wraps. After the last wrap, bring it up between the needles to secure last wrap. I just noticed that there are 13 wraps on the needles in the two pictures below - my mistake. I must have dropped the last wrap while knitting the first round.

This is the point where it gets really awkward to work with dpns. As you see, I've pulled the bottom needle to the right and am now starting to knit into the loops on the top needle.

Be extremely careful when you get to the end of the first needle! The yarn tail likes to slip away and unwrap the stitches. You can avoid that by using the slip knot, but I don't like starting with a slip knot as it usually gives me a diminutive hole. Yes, I can be a perfectionist. (It happened to me that the yarn slipped and I had to rewrap the last stitches. Which is a good thing in this case since I had a wrap to much. Obviously someone here cant count to 12.)

My Cast On, Bind Off book now tells me to twist the yarn tail around the working yarn another time. But I don't really like this. For one: it also gives me a diminutive hole - again, the perfectionist. Second - at this point, I don't see the helpfulness anymore. The trouble we had with the yarn tail was at the step before, and as soon as we knit the first stitch of the second needle, the yarn tail is secured and we only need to tug on it to tighten up the stitches. Anyway, I showed it here, you might like it more than I do.

Continue knitting all the stitches on the second needle and start with your toe increase rounds and pattern.

This is how the the Cast On looks with the toe almost done.

Questions, comments, suggestions, requests? I'd love to hear from you!