In today’s high speed world, knitting is surprisingly enjoying a revival of sorts as a calming yet productive hobby. Whether it’s a middle-aged man knitting in his cubicle to help keep his blood pressure in check or a child being taught to knit in school because it teaches hand-and-eye coordination, the new generation of knitters do not fall neatly into any one category.

If you want to jump on the knitting bandwagon, this step by step pictorial, geared for beginners, should start you on your way to a lifetime of knitting. Many stitches exist, but you are using the knit stitch to begin. The entire purpose of this very elementary knitting lesson is to teach the basics of casting on, knitting a row, and then casting off. Learn this and you can start knitting any basic article.

At a Glance: Knitting

1. Make a slipknot on the end of one of your knitting needles.
2. Add basic stitches to the needle, in a process called “casting-on”.
3. Run the bare needle through the first loop like when you were casting-on.
4. Bring your ball yarn from back to front over the point of your right needle.
5. Use the right needle to pull the new loop through the hole that is created.
6. Pull off the original stitch so that the stitch is transferred to the right needle.
7. Repeat until you’ve knitted all of the original stitches.

 

Choosing Some Knitting Yarn

Even I get overwhelmed with the amount of beautiful knitting yarns out there! I can spend hours going through all the different types of yarn, the color, the texture. And there’s always something new.

But it is amazing what they have for choices, and choosing the right ball of yarn for your knitting project can be puzzling. I’ll help you narrow down your choices.

For beginning knitting I would start with a medium worsted weight yarn. If you aren’t sure how to tell if it’s a medium size yarn the yarn label (ball band) will tell you what size it is.

Choose a knitting yarn that is only one color and also light colored. Because it’s much easier to see your stitches.

Find something that is pretty smooth to the touch. Wool and wool blends are great choices however there are other types of yarn too so try them out in the store. Feel how the yarn is in your hands. You’re not going to know until you touch it and squish it!

Make sure though that the yarn you buy has some stretch to it. This is important. You see if it doesn’t stretch much it will be very difficult to knit with.