So today let's talk about binding off or casting off as it's alternately called. So this is the practice of securing stitches at the end of your fabric so that it forms an edge and the stitches do not unravel. Having a quick count the other day I came up with 42 different types of cast-offs and bind-offs. So this is the first. This is the most common and most basic of those. So first you knit your first stitch. Let me get my hands off. Knit your second stitch and then you simply pass your first stitch over your second. These tiny needles are not ideal. Let's zoom in. Okay, we'll do that again. So knit the first stitch. We'll assume I already did that. Knit the second stitch and then pass insert your needle into the first stitch and pull it over the edge of your right hand needle. One more time. So knit the first stitch right there. That's done. I have to touch in my hand. Knit the second stitch. Go into the first stitch, pull it over and off. That is your basic bind-off. You can also bind off purl-wise. So let's do that now. So just a second purl one. Hang on. Okay. So purl one right there. There's my purl. Purl two. Grab this first stitch and pass it over. So this technique you can use it in ribbing. You can knit one stitch and purl the next and they will bind off in pattern. If you are looking for a looser bind-off, a lot of people talk about the yarn over bind-off. So that is when you knit one stitch, you wrap your yarn around the needle, knit the second stitch and pull, go into the yarn over and that first stitch and pull them off the needle. Okay. So I've knit the first stitch, yarn over, knit the second stitch, go into the yarn over and pick up the legs of that first stitch and pull them both off your needle, keeping that second stitch on the needle. There's a yarn over bind-off and that does create a looser bind-off. You could see the difference in these two fabrics. But instead of doing that, may I suggest that you simply go up a few needle sizes and knit the stitches as you normally would. I went up several. I would say go up two or three needle sizes and I'm just doing this quick to give you a point of comparison. Okay. So you can see, oh yeah, my point of comparison came on done. Well, you can see that the yarn overs are a looser underneath versus this. But it will form a stretchier fabric. Now I can also show you that I'm binding off knit-wise for most of this and on a stockenet fabric, sock fabric. And you can see that the bind-off edge wants to roll forward. If you want to avoid that, there are two little tricks you can do. I am demonstrating these with a sock because that's what I had for a piece of stockenet fabric lying around. But you most certainly would not do this type of bind-off on a sock. It would more likely be for the edge of a sweater, a blanket edge, I'm trying to think a larger project. So okay, here we go. To prevent that curling forward, all you do is do the purl bind-off on your right side, on the front side of your fabric. Or I know it can, it sounds tricky. You do the opposite of what you've been doing to bind it off. And instead of those stitches rolling forward, they roll back. So if you've been knitting with stockenet as the front of your garment, you do purl. If you've been knitting with garter as the front of your fabric, you would do a row of, well, it depends on where you are. But if you're on the purl side of a fabric, you would knit off instead of purling. Do you see what I'm saying? So here it is as a purl. And you could see that fabric doesn't want to roll. Let me get any closer. That fabric doesn't roll nearly as much. It sits pretty flat. If I were to complete the whole thing, it would tip to the back. Next I want to show you using that bind-off technique in a ribbed fabric. This happens to be a knit and purl. One by one. And on top of that, it's a twisted rib. But the process is still the same. You knit one, you pass the slip over. My next stitch is a purl. You can see the bump facing you, right? The knits have this nice kind of U ladder shape. And the purls look like a little bar sitting right there. So for that, I'm going to purl. And then I'm going to pass that last knit stitch over. Sorry, my hands got out of screen. I'm going to do that all the way around the sock. All right, I've reached the last stitch to bind off. I have purled it and passed that stitch over and cut my yarn. So I have a little bit of yarn left. There it is. And I'm going to take a tapestry needle. One of these, I purchased it at this clover. Little, I think it's three or it's five needles coming one of these. You can purchase them at an LYS. Or if you don't have one of those nearby, you can get them from webs online. Or my goals and joanns also carry them, Hobby Lobby, the big box stores. So here I am at my last stitch. And what you would normally do to bind off a last stitch is you take that last loop, you go through it, and you pull your fabric tight down to a knot. And that finishes it so it doesn't unravel. So instead of making the knot, I want this circular fabric to look for that ribbed bind off, to look continuous all the way around and not have a knot there. So I'm going to do the same step that I did to make a knot. I'm going to go through, pull it tight. OK, there, my yarn is secure. But then I'm going to follow that up with, that was on top of my purl column. I'm going to jump over to my knit column. And you see these two legs right here of the last knit stitch. I'm going to go under one under the other. So pick them both up. There's one, there's two. I'm going to go around underneath, and I pull it nice and tight. And then I'm going to go back to the last stitch I was on and go down through the center. And there it is. It looks just like its brothers next to it. And then you can just weave in, oops, I've lost my thread. But then you can just use your tapestry needle to weave in your ends. And voila, you have a nice finished edge. So if you have any questions about binding off or casting off, anything else you'd like to see me do, please leave a comment below. And if you've enjoyed this video, please like, subscribe, and hit the notification bell icon so you know whenever we have a new knitting guide.