I’m just back from Vogue Knitting Live in NYC. I’ll catch up with pictures from that eventually, but right now I’m packing to go to Red Alder Fiber Arts Retreat in Tacoma, Washington. I’m leaving today, so…I’ll catch up when I catch up! You can see some of my pictures on Instagram.
I worked on this assigned pooling design on my flights to and from New York. I have a very small digital scale for travel, but it’s not very accurate on a bouncy airline tray table. I waited until I was in my hotel room to carefully weigh my yarn to see how many grams it took to knit a round. Then I figured the number of rounds I needed to complete my project, and added a buffer. That yarn there? That was calculated to be enough to bind off, and knit a cord to cinch the top of this cowl/hat, just like the finishing on Pooling is a Cinch.
Almost done…and it’s clear that the bit of yarn left is not going to be enough to finish binding off the stitches on the needle. So much for math! I need about the equivalent of one more round, but I’d have to frog 10 rounds to get to the place where I would shorten this piece. Blergh.
Luckily, I remembered this trick, so here is this tutorial for you.
I win! And I like this narrower cord; it will fit in the eyelets better. That’s serendipity!
Have you ever had to resort to binding off without yarn?
PDXKnitterati 
Serendipity indeed!! Thank you for the video. Simple and elegant, and useful!!!
This is brilliant!!! Thank you!! Early in my knitting life I ran out of yarn (distracted by a sporting event on TV) and couldn’t even figure out how to rip it out (it was eyelash yarn and I was clueless about reading stitches) back to an earlier row. So I swore a blue streak. And ripped it ALL out. The entire scarf. I don’t remember who won the game. I just know that I lost the scarf.
Eyelash yarn is the WORST for ripping! Even more than mohair!
Wow! Michele, you are a genius! That is such a smart bind off. You’re awesome!
Not a genius, but I’m glad I remembered this trick! It saved me a lot of ripping and re-knitting!
Very cool trick!
Desperate times, desperate measures! So happy I remembered it, and that I didn’t have to frog!
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