The traditional Chinese waitress cast-on is more complicated than what I'm going to show you today. With the aid of a crochet hook, I'll show you a much simpler way that creates the same beautiful result.

So with a slip knot on your needle and a long tail—long enough that you can hold it in your hand with the needle—take your crochet hook and lay it on the working yarn and make an X with the crochet hook behind your needle. Now take your index finger and your thumb and hold the crochet hook just below the needle.

Now take your working yarn from front to back over the needle, in between the tip of the needle and the crochet hook. Now use the crochet hook to grab the working yarn and pull it under the little piece of yarn that's wrapped around the front of the needle and bring it to the front. Now look—you have one new stitch on your needle and one new stitch on the crochet hook. We're not going to count the slip knot.

Now we're making the X again with the crochet hook behind the needle. With your index finger and your thumb, hold the crochet hook just below the needle. Take the yarn from front to back over the needle. Now with the crochet hook, grab the working yarn, pull it through underneath the yarn that's wrapped around the needle and through the stitch on the crochet hook. Now you have one stitch on the crochet hook and two on the needle.

We're going to repeat that same step again and again. Grasp the crochet hook with your index finger and your thumb. Wrap the needle over the top to the back with the yarn going between the needle and the crochet hook. Grab the strand of yarn, pull it underneath the wrap over the top of the needle and through the stitch on your crochet hook. And do it again.

When you've cast on all the stitches you need minus one, again create the X with the crochet hook behind the needle. But this time what we're going to do is we're going to take the yarn between the needle and the crochet hook, so go behind the needle and over the crochet hook. Now take the crochet hook, grab the yarn and pull it through the last stitch on the crochet hook. Loosen it up a little bit and then take the tip of your left needle and go below and up through that stitch, pointing the same direction as the crochet hook. Remove the crochet hook and slip on the stitch.

So now you've completed your cast-on. And when you knit your first row and you get to the end of your first row, don't forget to drop the slip knot that you started with because we're not counting that.

This is a stitch that I really like because it has a beautiful finish and the edge is made up of two rows of stitches—actually one you see points to the left and the other points to the right. But also because it has a lot of elasticity, so you see it's quite elastic but it finishes off very nicely.

So now I'm going to show you a sample of a new pattern I've just created using this technique for the cast-on. And I do hope you'll visit my website—it's jamescoxknits.com. And while you're there, please sign up for my ongoing newsletter "James' Knit Notes." Every issue has a knitting tip. So thanks for watching my video. I'm James Cox and I can't stop knitting.