The next stage in our Professional Finishing series is all about the three needle cast off and it’s my favourite stage. It creates a beautifully smooth even seam and it’s so easy to do.

If you fancied seeing what I am writing about I’ve done a short  three needle cast off close-up video as well as others like the mattress stitch. I do them without speaking, they’re silent ones because I’ll write about them here and so the close-ups are short and simple.
Full disclosure…I’m not a trained video editor ( it’s tricky to convey humour in the written word!)  and this will be very evident on the three needle cast off video –  you can see my amazing editing skills! I didn’t think you wanted to see me cast off all the stitches so I stopped it and then started it again and it’s not seamless but what I’m about to write about is seamless (pun intended).

If you’ve been following the Professional Finishing series you will know that I love sharing the joy of working in pieces and joining them together. However, first and foremost I am a knitter,  I love the process of knitting. 

Joining the pieces together is necessary, for all different reasons including producing a good shape and fit, but wherever possible I want to keep knitting. 

This is why I love the three needle cast off so much.   

The three needle cast off is  the technique I use on shoulders and grafting toes together on a sock.
You can use this technique on all my garment patterns, every single one of them. 

And if you really fancied not joining side seams together at all, I have designed a few patterns that are knitted in the round, bottom up, and the only joining needed to do is this three needle cast off. These patterns can be found by clicking here  

You can love seams and you can also love the seamless as well, one of my latest pattern releases is the Sandhills Tank Top it is knitted in the round, no picking up stitches, and the three needle cast off. 

So why do I  love the three needle cast off for shoulders so much?
Because we are eliminating two cast offs and a sewing up and the result is so smooth and neat. We are knitting those seams together – brilliant! I also love knitting and I want to make it as simple and easy as possible to join a garment together.

As I mentioned, you can do this technique with all my garment patterns. In more recent ones, and as I update them I am including the instructions in them but if you have one that doesn’t have the instructions all you do is not cast off for the shoulders.

Where it says Shape Shoulders, don’t do this, just leave all the stitches on a holder.

If you are an experienced knitter who has knitted from many different patterns you may be familiar with the ‘step’ shoulders, I have never written a pattern with this technique and that’s where you cast off so many stitches at the beginning of the next three/six rows. This technique is always going to be horrible to sew up and more often than not there will be little holes. If you do this technique and don’t get any of those things then you are an amazing knitter!

I feel this technique isn’t needed. The beauty of knitting is that it creates shape without the need to do anything extra. I studied fashion at college and we learnt how to make a tailored suit (don’t ask me today how I did that but I did) and you have to be so precise with tailoring, you do have to shape those shoulders but in knitting, and this is why I love it, you don’t have to! The knitted fabric does all the hard work for you.

If you come come to the studio or you can have a look on the website, all the shoulders are just straight edges and joined together with the three needle cast off because the knitting and your shoulder does the sloping.

It’s tricky to explain the technique with the written word but I shall give it a go!

Place all the stitches needed for the shoulder onto one knitting needle. You want the point of the needle at the armhole edge. On the front this will be just the shoulder seam stitches. On the back it will be all the stitches but only cast off the shoulder amount. You will use one needle for the front and another needle for the back.

You want both those points facing in the same direction. I work from the armhole edge inwards. 

With a third needle knit into the first stitch on the first needle and the first stitch on the second needle and knit them together so you’re treating those two stitches as one. 

Do this again so there are two stitches on the third (right hand side) needle and cast the first stitch off and over the second one. Repeat these instructions until you have cast off all the shoulder stitches. 

It creates a lovely seam and eliminates two cast offs and one sewing up into one cast off. Easy peasy!

Now with anything new, there might be a moment when it might not feel easy, you may drop a stitch or a needle, but don’t worry I’ve done all these things, and it will become easy.