Suspended bind off tutorials

I often find that I need just a teeny bit more flexibility than I get with a standard bind off. My favorite long tail cast on is nice and flexible, and I don’t want my bind off to be tighter than my cast on.

First: How do I get my long tail cast on to be loose enough, but not sloppy? Leave space between the stitches as you add them to the needle. Don’t cinch them down tight on top of each other.

A suspended bind off suspends the moment that you drop the second stitch from the left needle in the bind off process. You can pull the yarn up to make a slightly bigger stitch when knitting that second stitch, and that also makes the bind off looser. Then you bind off the previous stitch before dropping the second stitch from the left needle. This bind off works in knit, purl, ribbing, whatever. It doesn’t matter if you’re knitting flat or in the round, either. It looks exactly like a regular bind off; it’s just looser. Here’s a video I made a while back.

What about brioche? Yes, it works for brioche, too. Sometimes I include what I call a closing row when knitting brioche, bringing those brioche stitches back to plain knits and purls. But if it affects my patterning (as in a decorative brioche increase/decrease patterning), I’ll opt to skip the closing row/round. Then I just use a suspended bind off incorporating those brioche stitches. I used this for my Aspen Leaf Brioche Cowl so that I’d have a nice edge for seaming, and no extra brioche above the last leaf motif. Here’s the new video.

I have other stretchy bind offs that I like, too. Jeny’s Super Stretchy Bind Off (good for ribbing), Elastic Bind Off (good for lace), Russian Bind Off…check out my tutorials page for all these and more.

What’s your favorite bind off?