I’m sure you’ve noticed how the very last stitch of binding off can look a little messy. It’s usually bigger than the others and you can easily tell which end is the end of the bind off for that very reason.
Yarn Sub mentions the reason for this extra big loop is because there’s extra yarn in that stitch (and every stitch of a bind off, actually), and that to neaten it up you need to get rid of or cover up that extra yarn.
The way the post explains of capturing the extra yarn is to push the loop down, then pull on the yarn end until the elongated stitch straightens out.
There are lots of different methods for dealing with this problem. I often knit the last stitch together with the stitch before it instead of doing a traditional bind off on that stitch, which also helps. If you have a different method for dealing with an ugly end to your bind off (or if you’ve tried this one) I’d love to hear about it.
[Photo via Yarn Sub.]
This is the same method I use and I think it works really well.
The method I use, and it never fails, is when I get to the last stitch I put my right-hand needle into the last stitch from the last row and then into the last bind off stitch, knit these two together and the pass the second last stitch over the last and then finish as above. I never get a dog ear.