A provisional cast-on is made to be easily undone later, exposing live stitches. This allows you to knit down from the cast-on edge without having to pick up stitches. This cast-on is worked with a seperate, constrasting piece of yarn. You will also need a crochet hook the same size as the needles for your knitting project.

To begin: Make a slip knot with your contrasting yarn, and place it on the crochet hook.  This is not the first stitch. Hold the crochet hook in your right hand and the knitting needle in your left.

To cast-on a stitch: Take the yarn behind the needle.  Holding the crochet hook in front of the needle, pick up a loop, and pull it through the slip knot. You now have one stitch on the needle. Repeat this step until you have the desired number of stitches on the needle.

To end: Use the crochet hook to pull a large loop of yarn directly through the loop on your crochet hook (don’t pass the yarn behind the knitting needle). Leave a little tail and cut the yarn. Later, you will pull on this tail to liberate the live stitches.

Now that you have cast-on the number of stitches you need, you may begin knitting with your “real” yarn.