A few days ago, I was bouncing around the web and stumbled across a post at knitty where Jeny Staiman describes the Interlocked Bind Off.

I tried it out on one of my knitting machines and I absolutely love it. Here’s how…

Insert your yarn needle through the first stitch front to back and through the second stitch back to front. I’m right-handed so I’m working from right to left on the two needles to the left of the yarn tail. Also note that I’m working with the wrong side facing because this particular pattern instructed me to bind off in purl. Otherwise, I might turn the work before binding off, but it looks good either way.

Keeping the working yarn on top of the needles, pull the thread through the two stitches…

… until there’s just a little loop left.

Bring your needle and yarn up between the same two needles and through the loop front to back.

Pull on the thread to close the loop. Don’t pull too tight — just enough so the yarn lays flat.

Then pull the rest of the yarn through. Work your way across the bed one stitch at a time. In this example, I bound off needles 3 and 4 counting from the left. Next, I’ll bind off needles 2 and 3, then 1 and 2.

After binding off the last two stitches, don’t put your needle away just yet. Go through the stitch on needle 1 front to back… then pull the thread, stitching through the loop just like you did when you were binding off pairs of stitches.

This is what it looks like on the side facing you…

And this is what it looks like on the side away from you.

N.B. As I said earlier, this pattern instructed me to bind off from the purl side, but this bind off works for ribbed bind offs too. Simply reverse the direction of the needle when stitching into a purl stitch and when coming through the loop if your needle is leaving a purl stitch.