Mitered Afghan continues

On the first square that I knit so many months ago, I blindly followed the pattern. I have not knit mitered squares before, I wanted to see how it would turn out. 

Now these particular squares are made up of four smaller squares, which involves a lot of picking up stitches. I am not opposed to picking up stitches; however, it quickly became clear how much easier a provisional cast on would make this project! I like to think that in the process of creating 15 of these larger squares I have really perfected my provisional cast on techniques. 

First, I make a slip knot to join my working yarn (black) to my scrap yarn (white). Rather than a slip knot that is tightened when one pulls on the working yarn, I make mine so that they tighten (and pull out) when one pulls on the tails). You do this by pulling through the tails (not the working yarn) to make the loop. It is so hard to explain verbally that half the time I just keep trying until I get it. Perhaps I will do a later post all on the inner working of the slip knot, but not today. 

I like the flexibility the waste yarn gave me in this particular project. In other applications, I appreciate using a space circular needle or interchangeable cable, because I'm able to just knit straight from it. In either case, the process of going under the waste yarn to grab the working yarn, then going over the waste yarn to grab the working yarn. These two steps are repeated until the desired number of stitches, just be careful the you actually get the last stitch locked into place by the waste yarn.

Here is the best part of what I have figured out this last week. When I have knit back to the slip knot, I can just undo the knot, separate the working yarn from the waste yarn, and weave the black tail into the knitting (more on that later). You could also put a safety pin into this loop until the end of your project. Or just pull it out now and let the tails hang until you are ready to use the provisional cast on.