I have been very bad at this whole blog thing lately! To make it up to you, I’m doing a tutorial. Some of you may already be familiar with the magic loop method. If you’re not, it’s a way to knit circular small diameter with one long circular instead of double pointed needles or two circular needles. You need a 40″ circular needle for this method. Some people use a shorter needle, but I feel like the shorter one stretches the join too much. You may also use a longer one, but depending on what you are knitting all that extra cord can get cumbersome (though it can be great though for knitting TWO small circular items at the same time such as sleeves or socks). Ok, so lets get on with it!

First, cast on as usual. I like the long tail method but do whatever makes you happy.

Divide the cast on stitches evenly and mark the middle.

Pull the cord out through the stitches where you divided them.

Continue to pull the cord through until the cast on stitches are on the needle portion of the circular needle.

Now you are almost ready to join and begin knitting in the round.  As with all circular knitting, it is important not to twist the knitting before the join.  It’s helpful to line up the cast on edges between the two needles as shown here:

Make sure your working yarn is on the right before you knit the first stitch to join the circle.

Now you’re ready to begin.  Pull the right needle (the one with your working yarn) until the stitches are down several inches below the needle, onto the cable.

Now your right needle is free and available to knit.  Knit the first stitch on the left hand needle (like with all circular knitting, you may want to pull on the first couple of stitches to make sure you get a tight join).

Continue knitting until no stitches remain on the left needle. You now have half of the cast on stitches worked…they are on the right needle now.  The stitches that still need to be worked are on the cable.

Pull on the cord so that the stitches on the cable are pulled up to the needle portion of the circular on the left side.  Then on the right needle so that the stitches that have already been worked shift onto the cord.

Now you are ready to begin knitting again in the same manner as before.  Just keep repeating this process until the circular tube you are creating is the desired length.  You can, of course, do shaping or patterns as you go just as with “regular” circular knitting.