I came to the craft of knitting very ambitious and naive. I had tried a time or two to pick up knitting and crocheting and quickly got sidetracked or disinterested. As the COVID pandemic of 2020 began and I was looking for something to occupy my time and mind, knitting seemed the perfect thing. I broke out the old needles and inexpensive yarn that I had purchased ages ago at a craft store and turned to YouTube for help. I looked for tutors that appeared patient and clear in their tutorials and were addressing exactly the skill that I needed at the moment.
The first thing I needed to learn how to do was to get my yarn on my needles. The first method of cast-on to learn is the basic called long-tail cast on.
I next needed to learn how to do the basic knit and purl stitches. Again I turned to YouTube masters to help me. There are no shortage of useful videos, but here are two that are good close ups of how to do each stitch. Honestly, once you can master these two stitches, you are off to the races!
I still had a lot to learn that you can see below. I started out with very uneven tension. I had to learn about garter and stockinette stitches, and about right side (RS) and wrong side (WS). Stockinette stitch is where you knit across the right side and purl as you go along back the wrong side. Garter stitch is where you use knit along both sides. I also had to learn about joining new skeins of yarn or new colors.
How It Started
A very messy “tutorial” swatch that I did in 2018.
How It’s Going
A green poncho I knitting in 2021 and an Irish Moss Pattern Sock. I’d say my skills have vastly improved. 🙂
As I have been developing my skills, I have been progressing and branching out from straight knitting to hats, shawls, and other techniques. I’ve learned a lot more about needle sizes and yarn weights and which are best to use for certain projects.
The first hat here is the very first hat I did, and the first time knitting in round. I just used some random chunk yarn but I felt quite accomplished to complete. The second hat is knitted with the butterfly stitch. I used Malabrigo Arroyo yarn, a DK weigh yarn, which I love, in the colorway Arco Iris. The third here are some children’s hats I made for a friends littles, using Lion Brand Basic Stitch yarn. Lion Brand anything is always a good, affordable yarn! I am obsessed with the little bear ears I was able to do.
I have moved into making some shawls as well. This is one of my first. It is the Richland Shawl, which is a lace shawl pattern and you can find the pattern for purchase on Ravelry, which is a repository for all fiber crafters. The yarn I got is from a local hand dyer that I met and loved at a local fiber festival I went to. The company is Knitting Notions and this shawl was done in the Classic Merino Superwash DK Yarn, in the color Damson Plum. I learned a few new things for this shaw; one being twist stitch and the other being the start stitch.
As you can see, the gnome (me) has been having quite a lot of fun learning and perfecting my new obsession…uh…hobby! 🙂 It has been a great exercise for me in patience as well as a stress reliever. Go figure that one out. I won’t lie and say I never get frustrated or unenthused with a specific project. But you stick with it. A perfect case in point for me would the be double-knitted scarf that I just recently completed for my mother. This means that the scarf is reversible and has two sides to it. It wasn’t even so much the technique for me, which really isn’t that complicated, but for a myriad of reasons this scarf just gave me so many issues. I constantly had to “frog” it (meaning take it apart), restart, and it took me an incredibly long time to complete for those reasons. There are any number of boo-boos in this scarf, which probably aren’t obvious to the naked eye, but I love how it came out in the end, and I will still give double-knitting another go because I love the effect.
Whatever your knitting journey, or your journey to a new hobby, I hope this inspires you to try something new, whether traveling or a craft. I am going to continue sharing my passions here.
Buen viajes and happy knitting!
Oh, I love knitting and I want to learn this beautiful art.
Beautiful knits! I am especially impressed with the double-knitted scarves!
Love the dinosaur scarf. Do you happen to have a tutorial for that?
I don’t have a tutorial myself, unfortunately! The pattern is available on Ravelry here:
https://ravel.me/dinosaur-scarf-6
If you YouTube Double Knitting you will find a lot of useful videos, which is the technique used for this scarf. Here is a good one. Be sure to pay attention to making neat selveges (edges)
https://youtu.be/uQKZR-2TwCA
Hope this helps!