Hey friends!

While I was working on my niece’s Flax sweater, I figured I would film how I like to do tubular bind offs.

Many patterns with 1x1 ribbing on collars, cuffs, and hems will call for tubular cast ons and bind offs. Honestly, I think Tubular is the best-looking edge to ribbing you can find (and there are some fugly finishing choices that can be made).

A tubular bind off is essentially a kitchener graft, but instead of joining two needles of stockinette knitting, you are joining one needle of 1x1 ribbing (knit one, purl one, etc).

There is a way to do a tubular bind off on two needles, which entails separating your knit and purl stitches onto different needles and doing a kitchener join from there. But that’s way more steps than is necessary because this can be done on one needle.

I like to begin my prep for a tubular bind off with two rounds of double knitting (round 1: knit 1, slip 1 with yarn in front; round 2: slip 1 with yarn in back, purl 1).

And there is a super simple trick to getting a seamless join (hint: all you need is a removable stitch marker).

So grab your ribbing and follow along! We all deserve clean and professional-looking hems.