Terence KAL: The Afterthought Tail

Okey dokey, how about a little tutorial on how to do that afterthought tail in Terence? I use the same technique in many of my other patterns too, including Tofu and Esther too. The afterthought tail is where you "hold" some stitches by knitting across them in waste yarn that you remove later to expose live stitches later. Sounds tricky, but it is not! 

Here we go! Ok, I just did my sample here using a little square I knit up, but it the same deal as in the round in Terence. I am ready to hold some sts now:

My patterns call for you to knit a few stitches before knitting with the waste yarn, so go ahead and knit as many as is called for:

Grab your waste yarn and begin to knit the next stitches with it. Make sure your waste yarn is a different color than your working yarn and about the same weight, or even slightly heavier than your working yarn. I like to keep my tail in front because I think it makes it easier to remove the waste yarn when you are done:

Then knit as many stitches as called for in the pattern with your waste yarn:

Turn your work so you are ready to work the purl side. This also works fine in the round, too:

Then purl back across those waste yarn stitches again:

Turn your work again, so you are back on the knit side. Again, I like to leave the tails in front for easy access when removing them (especially in the round):  

Go back to your working yarn, and knit across the waste yarn stitches and to the end of the round:

 

Here's what your held stitches will look like at this point:

At this point you are going to completely ignore these waste yarn stitches until you are done. When you are ready to expose your live stitches, grab your 40" circular (for Magic Loop). I am going to show you how to do this using Magic Loop, but you can easily use dpns too. Just use 2 needles to grab your stitches and work them onto 3 needles as you knit your first round.

Here my piece is, ready to release those stitches in blue:

 

We are looking for the stitches under the blue stitches. See my needle pointing at one there?

What you want to do is go ahead and slip your needles through those stitches. I count to make sure I am getting all the stitches I knit in waste yarn (refer back to your pattern if you don't remember how many you knit). Don't worry about if you are twisting them or not, you can fix them on the firs round as you knit them:

Yeah, halfway done!

Once you get the bottom half on your needle, Magic Loop around so you can do the same thing with the stitches above the blue stitches:

Mah-nah, stitches on needles ready to go!

Now you are ready to remove the waste yarn to expose those stitches! I like to use the needle tip to pick the stitches out. I start with one row of stitches and remove all of those first:

See those live stitches on my needle now? 

Since I removed one row to start, I was able to just pull the bottom yarn out:

Look at that! Stitches ready to knit. Love it!

Now just grab the tail of your working yarn and start knitting! Untwist any twisted stitches you come to:

Pretty awesome, right? 

Ok, I have stuff going on tomorrow and know I wont have time, so I am going to go over tummy attachment on Friday. Let me know what other Terence questions you have!

Comments

[Erin Whittemore]

Thanks for this! I am knitting Tofu right now--as fast as I can go. My son is practically standing over me waiting for his new toy to be finished! : )