Knitting lesson 1

Welcome to my first knitting lesson. I'm so excited to show you the art of knitting! There are 2 basic knitting methods you can choose from: English or Continental. I’m going to show you the Continental way (we’re going to hold the yarn in our left hands).

Today we’re going to learn:

1. Slip knot
2. Knit-on cast on
3. Knit stitch

The first thing we have to do is to put stitches on our left hand needle, that’s called “cast on” (abbreviation: CO). This is the foundation. There are many ways to cast on, I’m going to show you the Knit-on cast on. Some might say that that’s not the best cast on method, but I’ve been knitting for 35 years now, and I can tell you this: I use this method the most and there’s nothing wrong about it. I barely use other cast ons. Some patterns tell you the cast on method they use, but even then I use my favourite one.

The basic knitting stitch is the knit stitch (abbreviation: k), and when worked in every row, it’s called garter stitch. What does it mean “in every row”? You can work in rows and/or rounds in knitting. The pattern should tell you if you will work in rows or rounds.

When we work in rows, there is a right side (abbreviation: RS), and there is a wrong side (abbreviation: WS) of your project. The right side is basically what we see when the project lays down, or if it’s a sweater it’s the outside of the sweater (what everybody sees). The wrong side is the one that we don’t see.

How can we know which is the right side and wrong side of the project?

The pattern usually tells you what rows are the right/wrong sides, but if not, there is a way we can tell if we’re working on the right side of our project, or we’re working on the wrong side. Most of the patterns look different on the different sides, but when we’re knitting garter stitch, it’s hard to tell just by looking at our project, because the right side and wrong side look the same.

When the working yarn and the tail are at the same side of our work, then we’re going to work on the wrong side of the project. When the working yarn and the tail are on different sides of the work, we’re going to work on the right side of the project.

Let’s get started!

What we need to do first is to make a slip knot. If you're a crocheter, you know what I'm talking about, if not, you can see how I make a slip knot in my linked video below. After we make the slip knot, we place it on our left hand needle and start to put stitches on that needle; in other words, we’re ready for our knit-on cast on. The slip knot we put on the needle is our first cast on stitch. It is really important to leave a tail when we make our slip knot (I usually leave at least 4" - 10cm tail).

Knit-on cast on:

Step one: insert the right needle knitwise into the stitch,

Step two: wrap the yarn around the right needle,

Step three: draw the yarn through the stitch,

Step four: Slip the new stitch (the loop on the right hand needle) to the left needle from the back. Pull the working yarn tight, but not that tight that the stitch can't move on the needle.

Repeat these 4 steps as many times as the pattern tells you.

(Picture: 10 stitches on the needle)

Knit Stitch (k): The needle with the stitches is always in our left hand (if we’re right handed)

Step one: Insert the right needle into the first stitch.

Step two: wrap the yarn around the right needle, creating a loop

Step three: pull the loop through the stitch

Step four: slide the stitch off the left needle, the new stitch is now on the right hand needle. Pull the working yarn tight, but not that tight that the stitch can't move on the needle.

Repeat these 4 steps till the last stitch, then turn your work and start over on the other side of your work.

I know it’s hard to understand these steps at first, so pls check out my video!

https://youtu.be/26q6Klpbfmg

You can see on my video tutorial, that the material of the needles is important, too. My circular needles are meatal, and the straight needles are bamboo. The yarn is not slippery on the bamboo needles, so the stitches don't want to move on the needles. This can be a good thing and it can be a bad thing as well. It is good because you most likely won't lose any stitches, but it can make you frustrated because the stitches can stuck on the needles, making it hard to slide off the stitches from the needles.

I know it looks difficult at first, but if you practice the slip knot, the cast on, and the knit stitch, you will have no problem to create something beautiful later. (picture: garter stitch)

You ALWAYS have to be careful not to lose any stitches, so as you can see on my video, I'm always protecting the stitches with my thumb and/or my pointing finger.

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