Hello and welcome to your December Confident Knitting tutorial! Today we’re sharing a really clever cast on that sets you up beautifully for the brim of Gudrun Johnston’s Stellar Hat, December’s Confident Knitting pattern. I have to say, I really love techniques like this. Low effort to learn, great for so many situations… but also, I’m willing to guess, a novel method for many of our readers. It’s a really fantastic cast on to have in your metaphorical back pocket: it’s the long-tail and German twisted cast on for rib!

Phew that’s a lot of words. Don’t worry, remembering what this cast on is called is as hard as things are going to get. The reason the title so long is because this cast on is actually a combination of two cast-on methods: the much loved long-tail cast on and, my personal favourite, the German twisted cast on. Why do these work wonderfully together for the ribbed brim of a hat? For starters, the German twisted cast on, a cousin of the standard long-tail method, has an extra twist, meaning you’ve got a bit more yarn in your cast-on edge. More yarn equals more stretch, a very handy thing to have in a hat brim! Second, the German twisted cast on makes stitches that have a purl-like bump. When paired with long-tail cast-on stitches, you’ve got a flexible cast-on method, in all senses, that flows into rib beautifully.

So how does this compare to something like long-time Arnall-Culliford favourite, the tubular cast on. Well, like the tubular cast on, you create distinct knit and purl cast-on stitches from which your knitted masterpiece will grow. With this method though, you’ll still have an identifiable cast-on edge, where the tubular cast on has more of an, “is this the beginning or end” appearance. What the long-tail and German twisted cast-on method lacks in invisibility, it makes up for in ease of execution and flexibility. You won’t need anything besides your working yarn and gauge-sized needles, and it couldn’t be simpler to alter the cast on for any rib permutation you wish to work, be it 2x2, as in the Stellar Hat, 1x1, 3x2, 7x4 … the ribbed world is your oyster!

So, have your needles and yarn ready? Let’s give this a try! (Email subscribers, you can view the video on our YouTube channel here.)

We’ve used this cast on for the brim of the Stellar Hat, but it works in any situation where you’re casting on to work rib, be that a sock, sleeve cuff, hand warmer, mitten, jumper body … you get the idea. It’s a really useful cast on!

And just as a reminder, if you prefer to learn from photos rather than video (or find it useful to refer to both!) you’ll find a detailed photo tutorial for this cast-on method on pages 88–90 of Confident Knitting alongside Gudrun’s stunner of a hat pattern.

We’ll be celebrating projects that use the long-tail and German twisted cast-on method all December in our Confident Knitting KAL. Come on over if you’ll be trying out this method this month, we’d love to see what you’re getting up to! And of course, if you’d like to cast on your own Stellar Hat, you’ll find Confident Knitting, Winter Yarn Kits and the J&S 2ply Jumper Weight used in the hat in the online shop. You’ll need, depending on size, 2 or 3 balls of a main colour and 1 each of two contrasts. Happy casting on!

Long-tail cast ons, previously: The Spaced Long-Tail Cast On; Long-Tail Cast On over DPNs; Two-Colour Long-Tail Cast On; Two-Colour Long-Tail Cast-On Remix.