Now let me say that when I originally started down this road (about 3 years ago) I thought that yarn could be purchased inexpensively and I didn't realize how much time it would take to finish a project such as a sweater. Maybe more experienced knitters can finish a sweater in relatively small amount of time, but as a beginner it was a lofty goal. With yarn and the time it would take me to knit a sweater it wouldn't be any less expensive than purchasing one already made from the store. Keep this in mind if you're teaching yourself to knit as I am, but also realize that it is a fun hobby where at the end you have produced something and hopefully learned many things along the way. 

I've succeeded and failed at many knitting and crochet projects and learned new techniques, stitches, about sizing adjustments, and so on, but I still had not completed my original goal of making a sweater. This year that changes.

For Christmas this year my parents got me enough yarn to make a sweater, and my in-laws gave me knitting needles, completely separate and without knowledge of what the other had done. My mother-in-law let me borrow a book of easy knitting patterns for sweaters. This one is nice because I don't need to knit in the round, the front, back, and sleeves are knitted separate and then sewn together. Reminded of the goal I set out to fulfill many years ago I thought I'd write a blog post with the resources I used to get started learning to knit.

There are many techniques for casting on, and each has their advantages and specific uses. The first cast on I learned, and am using in this project, is the knitted cast on. It begins with a slip knot and from there you knit on the number of stitches you need for your project.

In knitting the two most common stitches are knit and purl, if you know those two you will go far. Knit stitch you enter from the front of the stitch.

Once you know how to knit and purl you're ready for ribbing. Ribbing is done whenever you alternate between knit and purl stitches. It can be k1, p1 repeated (knit 1, purl 1), k2, p2 (knit 2, purl 2), etc. If you're going back and forth knitting and purling you'll create ribbing.

Garter stitch is when you knit all the rows, your work will create a zigzag pattern and your piece will lay flat. Stockinette is where if you knit the first row, you purl the second. Commonly the knit side is called the right side of your piece in a pattern, and the wrong side is considered the purl, that's not always the case it depends on the pattern. Work done in stockinette tends to want to curl up on itself.

Increase

There are many different ways to increase stitches or decrease stitches and similar to cast on techniques they're done to get a certain effect. When I increased in the sweater I was knitting between the ribbing on the hem and the pattern for the rest of the sweater I used the knitted cast on at the end of my work, effectively adding one additional stitch. I wouldn't have done that if I was adding stitches in the middle of my piece like done when you make gloves. Another time you wouldn’t want to cast on new stitches in the middle of a piece is if you had a special design on your sweater. Then you would use a different method to increase your stitches that wouldn’t leave a hole.  Below is a video of how to add stitches in the middle of a piece.

One of the most important stitches to learn as this one finishes off your piece. In most cases bind off will be knit two stitches then take your first knit stitch and put it over the second so that the first is no longer on the needle. You'll continue the process by knitting one and putting the previous stitch over the other so that you're only left with one stitch on the needle. You do this until you have one stitch left. For the last stitch you'll pull your yarn through that stitch, cut the yarn so you have a tail and tuck in the end.

These are common beginning stitches you'll need to know to start and finish your knitting project. Hope you learn lots and can use this page as a resource!