Magic Loop, two at a time

I'm so behind on blogging, both writing and reading. As of this moment I have 784 unread blog posts in my blogroll. I'll get caught up some day.

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I made this series of photos a while back (like in October!) with the intention of posting a little tutorial on knitting up two sleeves at once on one circular needle using the magic loop method. I was so pleased with myself when I figured it out, although I now know that the information was out there already. :-)

You'll need a long circular needle and two balls or ends of the yarn.

Step 1:
Cast on HALF of the stitches for the first sleeve.


Step 2:
Next, cast on ALL of the stitches for the second sleeve.


Pull out a loop of cable at the half-way point of the second sleeve. This will form part of the magic loop.

You'll need to position the parts so that you can cast on the remaining stitches, so your set-up should look something like this:


Or this:

Step 3:
And now you're ready to cast on the second half of the stitches for the first sleeve:

Here they are, ready to begin working in the round (or almost ready!).

The yarn is coming from the back needle, and I'm about to pull out the back needle so that the stitches are riding on the cable, and so that I can work the stitches on the front needle:

And working the stitches:


From this point, you just work as normal for magic loop, dropping and picking up the correct yarn for each sleeve/tube.