I love the tidy look of a turned hem on sweaters. I would probably like it on other pieces as well, but my go to method for turning a hem has always been a provisional cast on and that was typically too much bother. I want to just get knitting!! Until the other night when I had a great thought to make the process more "just jump right in"-y
A reverse loop cast on typically results in a very loose cast-on edge of knitting, so why not use that to your advantage! I simply looped on one additional loop to my cast on target number. That way I can let it get as loose as I want and I can easily slip that extra stitch and all the extra yarn off at the end of my first row of knitting. But that's not the amazing part. The really awesome part is how easy it is to pick up those loops as new stitches when you want them later!
Look how lovely and uniform those loops are waiting to be worked together with the working edge of my folded knit hem!!
But that wasn't my only revelation while working this hem! In a usual matter I held my needle of live stitches in close proximity to my picked up loops and began purling two together. It's a bit tedious because either set of stitches could easily fall off without much trouble. So I did something a little different.
I slipped off the live stitch from my back needle...
Then purples my picked up loop...
See my little pulled stitch and that loose loop to the right if it, poised and ready!
From the back (which is the front of the hem) pass that slipped stitch over!
There is way less attempting to coordinate shuffling of stitches in my opinion. Sliding two purled together stitches off of their original needles always ends up a little uneven in my experience. This method eliminated that shuffle for me. I feel like there may be a couple more movements this way, but much more precision. I prefer it.
And look at these pretty purl bumps on the inside of my hem!
And a wonderfully even look on the outer side of the hem, not that I find a turned hem to be incredibly obvious on the right side normally. But this is so clean!
