SUMMER STUDIO (Knitting 101) | Learning the Knit Stitch (Part 2)

Okay, so it's been a few weeks since my last post on learning to knit. I set out to learn a few things about knitting for this summer. I'm really enjoying this art form. Mainly because it is relaxing and keeps me from eating at night.
Here's a recap of what I've done so far...

General comments.

I downloaded a basic knitting tutorial to my Kindle from AllFreeKnitting.com.
I found it easy to understand but a bit hard to follow because for one, I'm left handed and two, I really needed to see something in real time.

So, I decided to search for some videos on YouTube. I found a multitude of videos online. After looking at many of them, I found that the best ones for me were the ones that explained knitting for left-handers. I started a playlist on my FabricWorks Studio YouTube video channel. Here's the LINK.

Picking the knitting needles.

First, I purchased a set of bamboo wood knitting needles from Amazon.

They are lightweight and come in all sizes. Since, I have carpal tunnel in my left hand from crocheting, I wanted to use a large set of knitting needles. For my first examples, I used a needle that was 8.5 mm which is a bigger than average size needle.  They are easy to hold. For my final sample, I switched to even larger needles that are 10 mm. I like this size of needles because they don't aggravate my carpal tunnel.

Creating a slip knot and casting on.

For a slip knot, you just make a simple knot for the needle to go into. The video that worked for me was one by AllFreeKnitting.com. The instructor spoke clearly and repeated the important details. She made casting on very easy for me. Here's a LINK to the video.

I casted on an sample with 25 stitches. 

Here is all 25 stitches for my scarves on the needle. You can see how the stitches look from the bottom.

Knit Stitch.

The knit stitch was a bit tricky to read about for me. Being left handed and not knowing the mechanics of the yarn and how it should work.  The first video I looked at one involving the Continental Method.


Without knowing anything about this method, this method seemed to be more difficult because of the yarn wrapping on one hand BEFORE even taking one stitch.  From my understand, using the continental method for knitting minimizes the stress on your knitting hand by loading the yarn around your fingers on the other hand.


I must say that for me, not knowing anything about knitting, this method seemed way too HARD. So much to figure out - how to hold the knitting needles; how to hold the thread and then how to wrap the yarn to take the stitch. 

So, after trying to figure out the knit stitch (the easiest stitch in knitting from my understanding), I had to took a few days off !!!  I then decided not to use a video but instead to read some tutorials on it to try and understand WHAT the yarn needs to do. The BEST source on the Internet that I found was WikiHow.com.  It had a simple tutorial that showed closeup pictures at each step.  I really was able to pick up what the yarn had to do at each step.

Here is my first row with the knit stitch on my stick.

More to come...

Check out my other posts in this project:

Part 1: picking the yarn

Part 2: buying my needles; casting on the first stitches and learning the knit stitch

Part 3: learning the purl stitch

Part 4: progress on the skinny scarves

Part 5: finished skinny scarves