Casting On for a Stretchy Edge

My plan for this blog was to document my projects, but the first two posts are about knitting techniques.  I'm working on hats as class samples for the twined knitting workshop that I am scheduled to teach at the Carolina Fiber Festival in May.  One is worked on 4.5 mm (US7) needles, and the other on 4.0 mm (US 5.5) needles, because US 6 (4.25 mm) would have been ideal, but isn't available in my current needle preference.  For both, I used a 5.5 mm (US9) needle to cast on.  One has a twisted German edge.  The other is a three-strand twined version of Old Norwegian.  One short section in Traditional Scandinavian Knitting (Sheila McGregor, 1984) illustrates twisted cast-ons with different degrees of twist.  The one with a full twist is what I learned as Twisted German; the one with 1 1/2 twists is what I learned as Old Norwegian.  Both have more stretch than a standard long-tail cast on.  However, for the bottom of a hat or mitten, or for the top of a sock, either looks more even if worked firmly on a much larger needle than needed for the body of the work.  One of my pet peeves is directions that specify "cast on loosely," when "cast on firmly on size n needles" would give a more consistent result.

Picking up Stitches to Cover an Edge

Yesterday at Book Club, Trisha asked about picking up stitches along the end of her stole.  I suggested using a small needle and working: pick up, YO across to cover the edge, then working two together on the return row to get back to a reasonable number of stitches.  I've remembered another possible method, posted, years ago, to KBTH by C. Kehr.  Simply pick up a stitch in the normal way, then knit it immediately.  Continue across the edge to be covered.  If you need fewer stitches than rows, pick up two, then knit them together, at regular intervals.