Men Who Knit Promoting and inspiring the art of knitting amongst men.

Japanese Bind-Off, or Looks Kitchener Seamless To Me!

Align your knitting as you would for any 3-needle BO, with right or public sides together. *Take the tip of the right-hand needle, and go through the first stitch on the Front needle, then snag the first stitch on the Back needle and bring it through. (To “snag” the stitch, put your needle into it purlwise, then slip it through.) You have not used any working wool at all. Repeat from * across all stitches.

So, if you started with 72 stitches on Front and 72 stitches on Back, you now have 72 stitches total, and have merged the two pieces. Now, go back to the beginning of the “row”, and use the wool you left dangling there to Bind Off (regular-old BO).

Some instructions say you can do the pull-through and bind at one time, but it creates an obvious gully. I'll pass on that

If memory serves - Knitting Daily posted a tutorial on knitted Kitchener Stitch. I use it when needed but it isn't one of my best knitting skills. I should just sit down and practice it until I truly know it. Thanks for the link. -- Books, knitting, cats, fountain pens...Life is Good.

I F^&%$# hate Kitchner Stitch. I like the seamless looks it gives but i have a real hard time gettng the stitches to look even. HATE IT. Do it only if I have to (although it is good at the shoulders) And i often use waste yarn for a few rows to remove the piece from the needles and lay it flat where it makes way more sense to me.

Knitting the Kitchener stitch is a handy trick to know! I didn't know it until I was shown by Nigel while at the Fall Men's Knitting Retreat in September. For closing up the toe of a sock, it's been great. Although TechKnitter advocates its use for long tubular bind offs (http://techknitting.blogspot.com/2008/01/tubular-cast-off-its-pretty.html), I would probably still use a yarn needle. I think it's a bit faster.