Knitting in a Magic Loop

I am working on a mobius basket from Cat Bordhi's book, A
Second Treasury of Magical Knitting. For the basket, as opposed to the handle, I decided to use the magic loop knitting process. When I talk about this process, some folks look at me like I am speaking Greek, and I guess to them I am. :) So, I thought I would take some photo's to show you how it is done. First, you will need a long circular needle. The one I am using comes from my Denise Needle set, which I happen to sell on the website. The cord is 52 inches long, it needs to be long enough to leave the loops at each end.

If you look at the top picture you will see, stitches on the left hand needle tip and part of the cord. If you look REAL close you will notice that there are stitches on the cord that lays behind the needles. Those are the second half of the stitches. Using the needle on the right, knit the stitches off the left hand needle and cord.

Picture 2 is the process of that.

Picture 3 shows all of the stitches are knitted onto the right needle.

Notice the left one is free.

The first time I tried this magic loop knitting, I was very skeptical, didn't think I would like it. But, I am sold on it now!

In picture 4, I have pulled the back needle so that the stitches are close to the point. The back needle was the left needle. I have also pulled the front needle, which was the right needle, all the way through, giving me enough room on it to be able to have a loop at that end of the knitting. Notice, I have also kept a loop at the right side end of the knitting.

In the last picture, we have turned the knitting and we are ready to knit the stitches, which were on the back in the previous pictures. Just keep repeating this process. You will need to mark the beginning of the round, so that you can count your rounds and keep the knitting even all the way around. One round is equal to: knitting the stitches on the front, then turning and knitting the stitches that were laying on the back.

This process saves you from having to use double pointed needles, which tend to fall out all over the place. Try it sometime, you may like it.