St-Denis & the two strand tubular cast-on

I think it's clear by now that I like Classic Elite Yarns a lot - Pam Allen is their superstar creative director and their yarns are awesome. This week, one of my patterns from 'Knitting Classic Style' is the featured pattern for CEY's weekly web-letter. It looks a little different than it did in the book: it was originally knit in Montera, a Llama/wool combination well suited to the coldest of days.Thinking that it had potential for year-round wear, I began to look for a cooler yarn and found Sundance. Cotton is as confortable as it is easy to care far, but it's heavy and inelastic. However, Sundance is only half cotton: its other half is microfiber, a synthetic both lighter and more elastic than cotton. While I was swatching, I also tried Soft Linen and Cotton Bamboo (both CEY); two strands of each would have worked as well, but I loved the look of Sundance.Also, I was eager to have this cardigan re-knit in order to showcase some of the possibilities which couldn't be shown in the book. In it, the cardigan as above is shown in a larger size on a man while two women model a short sleeved version with waist shaping. Furthermore, it was decided during the tech editing process not to call for any special cast-ons or bind-offs unless essential to the pattern. I very often use the tubular cast-on and bind-off, but it does take much longer than any other method and Charlotte* and I feared it might put some knitters off the pattern.But since this is the web, all this can be included. Which brings me to today's tutorial: the two strand tubular cast-on. This method differs from most tubular cast-ons in that it dies not use any waste yarn to begin - you simply launch right into the pattern. It can also be used to cast om an odd number of stitches, whereas the waste yarns versions cast on an even number of stitches (which can be fudged, but that's a little cheat). It's usually followed by at least 2 rows of [k1, slip 1 with yarn in front(sl1 wyif)], but I often just launch straight into the pattern if I'm working a 1x1 twisted rib as was done for st-denis.I've made a little tutorial for it on flickr but I'm also trying a little something new - a tutorial for Ipods. Just right click on the link, download the linked file to your hard drive then drag it into your Itunes folder and it should be all set to go. If it works out for you guys, I'll make one for the stem stitch bind-off tutorial. So, let me know if it does, all right?