Whether we use a seamless cast on for our toe-up socks, or close the stitches of the toe part of our top-down socks with the Kitchener stitch grafting method, we often end up with pointy sides known as “ears”, “dog ears” or “donkey ears”.
They do look a bit like ears, and even though they do not affect the fit of a sock, the sock toes look more sleek and well-finished without those pointy stitches.
The “ears” are not formed by the cast on or the grafting. They are formed by the stitches of the last round of the fabric. That’s why we can minimize the size of the “ears” if we pull the yarn at the very beginning and the very end of the cast on or grafted edge, but this does not eliminate the “pointy stitches” completely.
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Fortunately, there is a simple way to get rid of this issue. Let’s see how it works step by step.
In many cases, the “ears” at the cast on edge are not very prominent, but if you’d like to eliminate them completely follow these simple steps:
STEP 1
Use any type of seamless cast on (invisible cast on, Judy’s magic cast on, or a similar method) to cast on the number of stitches that you need for the toe-up socks or any other project that starts with a seamless cast on edge.
Then work the “elimination round” as follows:
STEP 2
Bring the yarn to the back of the work and slip the first stitch of the round purlwise from the left needle to the right needle.
STEP 3
Work all stitches to the last stitch of the first half of the stitches. In a majority of cases, we knit all stitches in the first round, so that’s what I did when I worked the stitches of my swatch.
STEP 4
Slip the last stitch of the first half of the stitches. Do it purlwise with the yarn at the back of the work.
STEP 5
Repeat steps 2 through 4 to work the second half of the stitches in a similar way – slipping the first and the last stitches instead of knitting or purling them.
Starting with the next round, follow the instructions of the pattern that you use to make your project. If necessary, pull the yarn tail to tighten the stitches at one side of the cast on edge, and redistribute the yarn among stitches at the other side of the edge to keep the edge stitches from getting loose.
Once you work a few rounds, you will see that there are no stitches sticking out at the sides of the cast on edge. Instead, the edge is nicely curved and smooth.
I intentionally didn’t add any shaping to my swatch. This way, you can see that this simple trick is powerful enough to even soften the edges of a perfect rectangle.
If you’d like to improve the look of the edge finished off by the Kitchener stitch method, work the “elimination round” (steps 2-5 described above) right before you graft the stitches.
Because we slip the edge stitches in the “elimination round”, we keep them lower than the rest of the fabric. This simple trick tames those trouble-maker stitches and does not allow them to stick out at the edges of the grafted edge.
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This method works great with all types of seamless cast ons and all kinds of grafting. You can even use it when you bind off stitches using the three-needle bind off method. Whatever technique you choose to use, the sides of the cast on and bind off edges will be slightly curved without a hint of those pesky “ears”.
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This and 36 other in-depth tutorials are part of Knitting Collection #7.