Emily Ocker's Circular cast on

This week my intermediate knitters class was a challenging one for my students! They were learning how to do Emily Ocker's circular cast on. If you haven't tried it yet - It's a fantastic cast on for starting any of those in the round patterns that start from the center out or top down like hats or circular shawls but it can be quite tricky until you get the hang of it!

I knew the cast on and learning how to do increases in the round would be difficult for everyone to get to grips with so I designed a small stash busting pattern for a center out circular coaster. It's only 12 rounds long - so just long enough to learn the techniques and get some instant gratification from finishing a quick project! 

Click here to download the FREE pattern from Ravelry and give it a go! 

P.S. If you fancy trying a top down simple adult hat that uses this cast on instead - I have FREE hat pattern here on Ravelry too :)

Did I mention i'm a HUGE Harry Potter fan?!

I’ve not mentioned this before but I’m a major fan of Harry Potter :D and absolutely loving that our eldest is enjoying our reading our way through all the Harry Potter books at bedtime.. We’re on #3 at the moment ‘The Prisioner of Azkaban’. F already has his own Harry Potter wand and is hoping santa is going to bring some Harry Potter Lego if he’s good.


I was looking for something to put into G’s and F’s Christmas stockings and came across this wonderful free golden snitch pattern by Raynor Gellatly.. which I just couldn’t resist making!

To stop possible fights over whose was whose or F trying to claim G’s in addition to his own I chose the only colour F is not so keen on for G’s.. luckily she doesn’t have any aversion to pink :D

I made a change to the method of knitting the spheres.. I knitted them in the round with a long circular & magic loop method; stuffing as I neared the top of the ball so I could avoid having to sew any seams up & I used Emily Ockers circular cast on method for a really tight/neat circular cast on. The only tricky bit was knitting the last k2tog row as I’d stuffed the spheres to their utmost to make them very firm!

They took me less than two evenings and I just couldn’t resist sharing them.. lets hope F & G like their little extra stocking surprises & my thanks go to J.K.Rowling for creating the wonderful Harry Potter Universe and all the Characters therein.