Knit Basics: How to Get Started Knitting

If you're new to knitting, welcome along to the start of a wonderful journey! It can be very intimidating to start with but once you get to grips with the basics you'll soon be flying along.

Basic Knitting Techniques

There are two basic stitches; knit stitch and purl stitch. These can be combined in many different ways to create different stitch patterns and effects. The knit stitch is 'smooth' under the needle and the purl stitch creates a 'bump' just below the stitch on the needle.

When you begin knitting, you start with your stitches on the left needle. As you work each stitch by wrapping yarn through the first stitch, it will transfer over to the right needle. When you are finished, you will turn to the other side and start again!

How to Read Your Knitting

The front of your work (as you view it) is known as the Right Side (RS) of your work. The back/private side is known as the Wrong Side (WS). If you are knitting in the round, you will always be working on the Right Side, round and round in circles.

To start your knitting, you will have to put stitches on your needle. This is known as casting on. When you are finished knitting you need to anchor all of the stitches so they don't come undone. This is know as binding off (in the US) or casting off (UK).

The two most basic stitch patterns are garter stitch and stockinette (or stocking) stitch (st st).

Garter stitch is created by knitting every stitch on both the right and wrong side row. St St is created by knitting on the right side and purling on the wrong side.

So this gives you a quick overview of the different terms. Come, jump into this video to see some of them on the needles.