Magic Loop Technique

I have used double-pointed needles for a while now and was generally quite happy to continue doing so. I use them at the start and end of a hat, for socks, and some baby clothes, including baby booties. However, when I tried to use them to knit my recent hot water bottle cover design, I really struggled to have a neat tension when swapping needles and ended up with a ladder (see pic to the left).

Suggestions from friends included trying to loosen my tension before I swapped needles as it appeared that I was pulling the last stitch on the needle more tightly then the others and it was causing a slack when I knit the first stitch on the needle. Another friend suggested that I knitted in an additional stitch when the product was finished (in much the same way as you might if you had dropped a stitch), but this didn't work either as my knitting wasn't loose enough, and having one stitch too many looked equally bad!

I had been wanting to learn how to use magic loop technique for quite a while and so this seemed like the perfect opportunity! To learn how to do this I used this video from YouTube.

It was a really easy, worthwhile technique to learn - I have used it so much since then - for hats, sleeves etc... all adding to the overall aim of avoiding any sewing up after a project has finished. This is the completed hot water bottle cover (left) and there isn't a ladder in sight!