Cast On, Bind Off (47 page)

Reach the needle up, over, and behind the yarn and scoop a loop forward. (This looks like a yarnover). Both stitches will be slanting the same way.

Repeat steps 3–5 for the desired number of stitches. Count each stitch made by the right-hand needle as 1 stitch. Do not count the stitches that appear on the cable beneath the needle.

In order to keep the stitches from twisting, you need to make sure the cable and needles cross only once (making that Möbius twist). To do this, push/pull the cable, needles, and stitches so that the cable is flat and the sides are parallel to each other. (Cat likens this to a railroad track.) With both needles at the top ready to knit, let the right-hand needle cross the cable at the top. The cable and left-hand needle are parallel to each other all the way around. You may have to rotate the left-hand needle around the cable to make this happen.

Place a marker on your right-hand needle and knit the slip knot.

The stitches on the first half of the round often tend to slide out of order and over each other, so make sure you spread them out as you move them up onto the left-hand needle. Notice, too, that the stitches are mounted alternately. Your job is simply to knit through whatever open triangle presents itself. This means you knit one stitch through the back and the next through the front across the round.

When you have knit to the point where your stitch marker is hanging on the cable beneath your needle (it cannot be removed at this point), you are halfway around! You'll see your original slip knot again, too. Tug down on it, and knit into the stitch formed by the side of the slip knot.