Doubled Tail Long Tail Cast On

You'll need to be familiar with the long tail cast on, aka double cast on, continental cast on, sling shot, two-strand, Y cast on, german cast on. Knittinghelp has a great video tutorial for it.

A doubled tail long tail long tail cast on basically takes the tail, doubles it, and continues as normal. I learned this from JC Briar, an absolutely amazing teacher. Lucy Neatby also refers to this in her knitting videos. The doubled tail strand, which sits like scarves around the base of the stitches on the needle, gives a lovely rolled cast on edge, and also helps give a good elasticity to the cast on. Don't pull tight on the tail strand, just pull it so that it sits cleanly under the stitches. Too tight, you'll lose your nice elastic edge, too loose and it'll look sloppy. Experiment to find just the right tension for you.

I start with yellow and blue spitpliced yarn to help you see which bit of yarn does what. Blue for the yarn that comes from the ball, and yellow for the tail end.



So take the tail end, fold it in half like so, and place over the needle.




Take your finger, and place it over the yarn and the tail end to keep it from moving around.


Then continue on your way with a normal long tail cast on, bringing your needle towards you, then under the loop on your thumb.




Then snag the ball yarn




and bring it through the tail loop towards you to create a new stitch.


Take your thumb out of the tail loop, and pull it (not too tight, just so that it sits cleanly under the new stitch on the right needle)


Stretching your thumb and finger apart, whilst holding on to the tail and ball yarns in the rest of your fingers, will help tighten up loose stitches.


Repeat process for more stitches.





By the third new cast on stitch you'll be able to take your right index finger off the tail end and first cast on loop, and it'll hang there nice and obedient until weaving in time!