Minerva Entrelac KAL: Casting on

Ready to cast on? Almost! Are you planning to knit a cowl, or a scarf? It’s good to plan your ending before beginning.

Photo by test knitter Paula Sadler

If you’re planning to knit a scarf, you can just begin with a long tail cast on. The first row after that is a purl row, because when you turn to knit back after casting on, you’re looking at the bumpy purl side of your cast on. We’re knitting stockinette based entrelac, so we want all those purl bumps on the back! By purling the setup row, we’re getting ready to work from the public side, the right side, the knit side.

If you’re planning to seam your Minerva into a loop cowl, I’d recommend beginning with a provisional cast on. When you’re finished knitting, you can pick up the live stitches from the provisional cast on, and use these with 3 needle bind off to join the beginning to the end. I did this with my Noro Minerva; I’d always rather knit than sew!

The crochet chain provisional cast on is my favorite provisional cast on. I made this tutorial back in 2012; it’s not as pretty as more recent tutorials, but it still works! You can use whatever provisional cast on you choose, though.

And if you just use a long tail cast on because you thought you were knitting a scarf, and somewhere along the way you change your mind? You can also pick up stitches along the cast on edge, and join those to the end with a 3 needle bind off. It’s a little bit tighter, though, so I didn’t love doing that (on the 2 Chroma cowls). I used an elastic bind off, in combination with the 3 needle bind off, to make the seam more flexible. But that’s for later!

OK, let’s go! Cast on, and purl your setup row. We’ll go from there.

You can find the Minerva pattern here on Ravelry.

Edited to add:
All Minerva KAL 2020 posts:
Introducing Minerva Entrelac Cowl/Scarf and KAL
Minerva KAL: Choosing your yarn
Minerva KAL: Casting On
Minerva KAL: Base Triangles
Minerva KAL: Tier 2
Minerva KAL: Finishing Tier 2