Genius Tips
Techniques in Depth: Three-Needle Bind-Off
The weather is turning cold here, and it seems like it’s exactly the right time to start thinking about a big snuggly cardi. Maybe one of the sweaters in Field Guide No. 28: Renewal?
Designer Norah Gaughan made a smart decision in her patterns to help make the finishing the shoulders (often tricky!) easier.
Good shoulder finishing is important for two reasons:
The first is that section is pretty visible—well, unless you have loose, long hair! People can see this seam, so you want it to look good.
The other reason is that a solid shoulder seam is a key part of the “scaffolding” of the garment. It is crucial to helping the garment hold its shape over time, making sure it won’t stretch or sag off your shoulders.
We therefore need tidy and firm shoulder seams.
You can bind off and use a seaming method, but not everyone loves or feels confident about doing them.
Sometimes grafting is used, but I don’t recommend it for garments worn larger or looser (as in the case of Norah’s designs) as it isn’t very firm. Plus it can be hard to make tidy.
Norah uses a three-needle bind off: it’s quick, it’s easy, and it meets our shoulder needs handily. Here we go!
Set-up Step 1: When working the shoulders, cut the yarn when you’ve finished the knitting, but leave yourself decent tails—about 4 to 5 times the width of the stitches. That way, you’ll have enough to work the join.
I do this on both sides, as a security measure.
You will have two sets of stitches, one for each side of the garment. If they’re on holders, get them back onto needles. (If you’re using straight needles, set them up so that the working yarn is hanging at the tip of the needle.) Then do a quick count to confirm you’ve got the same number of stitches for both.
If not, un-knit a row on the side that’s short a stitch, and re-work with a sneaky increase as required to even things up.
Yes, always increase rather than decrease to match the stitch counts up, even if you end up with an extra stitch beyond what the pattern says! Having an extra stitch in a bound-off edge helps keeps things from getting too tight.
Set-up Step 2: Hold the work so that the right sides are together, and grab yourself a third needle. I recommend that your third needle be a size larger to keep your stitches loose. Although you want a firm join, it’s easy to make the bind-off inadvertently too tight.
A pointy tip is also a good thing for this method.
Step 1: With one of the long tails (really doesn’t matter which), knit into a stitch from both the front and back needles at the same time. This creates one new stitch on the right needle.
Step 2: Knit both of the next stitches, again one from the front needle and one from the back. There’s now two stitches on your right needle. Lift the first one over the second, as for a standard bind-off.
If you find it challenging to hold the two needles on the left-hand side, grab yourself a hair elastic and wrap it around the two needles to hold them together.
Repeat Step 2 until all stitches have been bound off and one stitch remains on the right-hand needle. Cut the yarn, leaving a tail about 4 inches/10 cm long, enough to weave in, and pull it up and out.
And done! Look at how nice it looks, on both the right side and the wrong side of the work.
If you work the three-needle bind-off with the right sides together/wrong sides facing, that puts this “chain” seam on the inside of the work, as shown.
I think that the chain is pretty darn handsome, and I will sometimes choose to place it on the outside of the work, by working the three-needle bind-off with the wrong sides together/right sides facing.
It looks good, and some find it more comfortable, as the smoother edge sits against their body. It’s up to you!
For further reading: there’s more on binding off loosely here.
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Great explanation. I’m a fan of showing the seam (binding off with wrong sides together). I think that sometimes ‘exposing’ the construction of a garment, adds to its uniqueness!
I’ve been a devotee of 3-needle BO for years. I recently discovered a “forgot-the-official-name” version, where you knit the front and purl the back stitch. This takes a bit of fiddling but buries the ridge underneath the stitches and makes a truly handsome edge on the outside.
I too use the knit/purl 3 needle BO because it eliminates the unattractive ridge. It’s a nicer finish when used on the inside and looks like a design detail when used on the outside. I found this method several years ago on YouTube and never looked back.
It can be found on YouTube: Knit Purl Three Needle Bind-Off by P Ricci
I endorse this method and this video by P. Ricci. It really does make a beautiful flat seam.
I recently came across this technique and I love how it looks. On the pattern, where I found it, I think it was called a flat three needle bind off.
one of my very favorite things to do is a three needle bind off. Super satisfying to make the whole project so tidy!
This is my favourite bind-off for shoulders. Thank you for explaining the need for a sturdy seam at the shoulders.
Super good column, Kate. Thanks.
and the best photos! closeup and clear and big!
This is going to be the first time that I will need to do a finish seam of some sort on the shoulder as I usually knit top down. I have been researching the best solutions for this and have read conflicting material. I like the idea of a 3 needle bind off, but some authors say it does not hold up. Can you provide me any more references on the positives side of using it please?
Hi Mary,
I’ve seen this comment from time to time and it really puzzles me. Over the years I have used the 3-needle bindoff in countless applications, including shoulder seams, and I feel that in terms of strength, it’s superior to anything else I’ve tried.
I’m going to speculate that folks who feel the 3-needle-bindoff is not strong enough are comparing it to a sewn backstitch seam. Backstitch may be marginally stronger, but it’s too bulky for me, it’s harder to work neatly, and it doesn’t have the flexibility of 3-needle-bindoff.
It’s super easy to un-zip a 3-needle-bindoff if you don’t like it, so give it a try and see how you like it.
Thank you for your reply! I am in the TKGA master hand knitting program and so I have to do a lot of research on different methods. The last opinion I read on the 3 needle bind off was from The New Knitter’s Template by Laura Bryant and she was pretty negative. To me it seems easier than seaming.
I have been using this method for at least a decade. I knit with wool and have never had a problem with the 3-needle bind off on the shoulders.
The hair elastic tip is a good one!
I’m a fan of the three-needle bind off and do it a lot, but one trap to avoid is to make sure you pull the working yarn through BOTH stitches, the front and the back ones, as you knit them together onto the right-hand needle in the first step. In my early attempts I would often complete the bindoff and then notice a dropped stitch, usually on the back side. It’s not difficult to avoid, just something to watch out for.
Also, how did you get the hair tie over the working yarn in the picture?
If you cut the end before starting you can just pass the end back through the hair tie! (It does seem like it’d be hard with a whole ball.)
Hi Kate,
Thanks for the excellent descriptions of helpful techniques. I find that using a crochet hook instead of a third needle makes the 3-needle bind-off go more quickly.
I’ve used 3-needle bind-off exclusively for shoulder seams since the moment I learned the technique!
I also set up for it when doing the shaping for the top edge of the shoulders by working short rows instead of doing the “stair-step” bind off so often shown.
Three or four short rows, followed by a final row where all the wraps are picked up and worked will give you the shoulder slant while maintaining that row of live stitches for the 3NBO.
I’ve heard of this magic trick (mostly here at MDK) and have wondered at how it was performed. Thank you for such a clear explanation and lovely photos showing exactly what you were describing!