Knitting a Tube

To knit a tube on the Bond, you would use the intarsia keyplate in the carriage minus the wire yarn guide. You can make it any width you want but you would want to use an uneven number of stitches. If you were to knit a sample of, let's say, 19 stitches, ten of them would "belong" to the back of the tube, nine would belong to the front. At the end of the knitting you will need to reform each stitch that belongs to the front to a knitted stitch. You will really get a tube that has been knitted on every other needle.

You can start with different cast-ons such as e-wrap, crochet cast-on or an open cast on (to do this, knit two separate pieces of waste yarn on every other needle, one over 10 EO needles, one over 9 EO needles, then hang the one that has ten stitches on the odd numbered needles, the one that has nine stitches on the even numbered needles. If you use an open cast-on, you would have to bind off that edge at the end).

Let's use the e-wrap cast-on for this sample. Bring to holding position needle 1 and all odd numbered needles through needle 19. E-wrap those from left to right.

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Now bring the even numbered needles, 2-18, out to holding position on top of the floats that have formed between the odd numbered needles. E-wrap them from right to left. You need to go under the needles that already have a loop and over the empty needles. (Try and e-wrap them so the loops are in the hooks and not behind the open latches). The yarn is hanging down from needle 2 at the end of the cast on. 

Push the even numbered needles back against the bed (if loops have slipped behind the latches, lift them back over the latches into the hooks. Leave the other needles in forward working position. You may have to manually knit this first row unless you started with waste yarn and weights on the knitting. Knit the odd numbered needles. Now the even numbered needles have floats in front of them. 

Normally you would now knit the even numbered stitches, but because it is pretty tough to see the stitches from the cast-on row when they have floats in front of them, I first take those stitches off the needles with the transfer tool and hang them back in front of the floats.  They are really not yet stitches, just loops from the cast-on row. 

Now pull those needles to forward working position, leaving the others against the bed, and knit them.  Reform them to knit stitches and check to make sure they are not connected to the stitches on the alternate needles.  At this point, I hang the bobby pin cast-on comb with the weighted hem between the needles. If you don't have one and didn't start with an open cast on and weights on the knitting, you would want to use claw weights.

From here on out it is really simple.  It is like knitting a slip-stitch pattern. On the first row, push needle 1 and every other needle to holding position with the needle selector, then back to FWP with a ruler - knit across.  On the next row, push needle 2 and every alternate needle to holding position with the needle selector, then back to FWP with a ruler - knit back. Repeat those two rows for as many rows as you want.  This makes a dense slip-stitch pattern too. 

At the end of the knitting or whenever you feel like latching up some stitches, put your latch hook all the way down into the second stitch from either side that you converted to a knit stitch on the first row, and release that stitch from the needle.  Pull the knitting sideways and you will see large floats.  Relatch stitch all the way to the top and rehang on needle.  After reforming two or so stitch columns you can put your hand inside the tube and relatch the stitches that way.  It's pretty quick to do and the floats are large enough so you won't mistake them for the floats across the back. 

To bind off, knit one row (actually two passes of the carriage) with a larger keyplate (about two sizes larger), then crochet bind off with latch hook tool so tube stays open and the last cast-off stitch meets the yarn. 

Voila, a tube!

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This page last updated 11-September-1999