I'm Done. Now What?

I spent some time this morning knitting away at the piece of knit fabric that is to be felted. We had some errands to run. Pam drove while I knit. I wonder what other drivers think to see her driving while I'm sitting in the front seat knitting. Usually the gender roles are reversed. I know some of the guys at the filling station -- Oregon doesn't allow self-serve gas stations -- look rather askance at me. I don't care and they don't have alpacas.

Anyhow, here I am realizing I have this length of knit fabric that is now as long as I need it to be. I'm done, right? Well, it turns out it's not quite that simple. You see, I've still got a knitting needle stuck in the fabric with all these loops over the needle. If I pull the needle out, the knitting is likely to unravel during the felting process. I've got to do something with this end before I pull the needle out. In the past, I've made nothing but practice pieces -- which I have always ripped to prepare the yarn for re-use.

Off I went in search of my Susan Bates learn to knit booklet that came with my knitting needles. I see "Step 3 -- Binding Off".

So that's what they're talking about in these blogs. When they're binding off, it means they're taking the work off the needles.

Here I am working with handspun alpaca and I don't know how to bind off. Fortunately, it's low-grade (third quality) alpaca, hastily spun, and intended for felting so I have a little room for error. How much error and how much room, however, I have no idea.

I guess I'm about to learn how to bind off.