Icelandic Garter Bind Off

Icelandic Garter Bind Off
The name Icelandic bind off probably comes from the fact that since 2010 I have been teaching the method during my knitting tours and it seemed little known outside Iceland. The participants in my trips will have made it popular under this name and little by little it spread under the name Icelandic BO in the knitting community worldwide.

It is called garðaafelling (garter bind off) in Iceland. This technique allows the stitches to be bind off in an elastic way (with the right tensioning) and does not add an extra row. Knit 1 stitch, bind it off over the next stitch that you knit itself through the bind-off loop, then the two stitches are dropped from the left needle together. This bind off has been known in Iceland since at least the end of the 19th century and was made known by Sígriður Halldórsdóttir who describes it in her book Þríihyrnur og langsjöl (a book on traditional Icelandic shawls, translated in English). She notably taught it at Handprjónasamband Íslands (Icelandic Handknitting Association) where it is used to bind off lopi sweater collar.

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