In a few weeks time I should have my ‘Lime with a Twist’ cardigan up for sale. This cardigan is fairly straightforward to knit but it does involve both a provisional cast on and quite a few picked up stitches.

Hopefully (if I can get someone to take photos!) I will put a tutorial on my favorite way to do both of these.
There are many different ways to create a provisional (or invisible) cast on. The method I find the easiest and use the most is the crochet cast on directly onto the needle. Bear in mind that you don’t need to know how to crochet to do this (I am not able to crochet) and it is easy to control.

Picking up stitches is very useful to feel comfortable if you want to avoid sewing knitted pieces together. To make your picked up stitches look as tidy and professional as possible you need to always ensure that you pick your stitches up in the same row – it sounds simple but it can be remarkably easy to slide across a row and it really ruins the edge.
Also with picked up stitches you want to avoid holes, two things to keep in mind are to avoid picking up where there is a big gap – if you work into more tightly knit stitches there is no give to create a hole when the piece is being worn.
Usually when you pick up stitches you are asked to ‘pick up and knit’ the stitch, when you do this you should keep the yarn as tight as you can. If you find the stitches loose you can cheat a little by knitting into the back of the next row to tighten them up a little.
The only time I have really seem only ‘pick up’ called for is with applied I-cord’. In this case just picking up the loop that the stitch will be worked through is all you do.
More (with photos) of these tutorials in the near future.