CASTING ON

I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate learning the Italian Tubular Cast on, which is what the pattern asks for and what, indeed, looks like the right choice for the end product. To learn it, I first tried to watch the tutorial linked to the pattern. Then I tried one by Brooklyn Tweed. Now I’m using this, which seems the most tolerable: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjzAY6YlvNw Other methods were making it impossible to keep the purl bumps or the spine of the cast on in a row instead of twisted all over the place, and were even more too tight - like, the pattern said to do it tightly, but I don’t think there’s another way to do this cast on, and presumably one needs to actually be able to cram a needle in to work out of the cast on at the end, too. Nevertheless, any way I try hurts my (achy but still only 41-year-old) hands.

PICKING UP TEN STITCHES

Usually you say you’re picking up stitches you’re working out of a finished edge. This just means to work an increase. Probably every 10th or 11th stitch. Maybe a bad translation.