Knit Stitch Tutorial ~ Knit For Crocheters Series

Okay, so we just finished our cast on. We're ready for our knit stitch. If you are just joining us for the knit stitch, I have a video where we did our cast on, so if you need to go watch that first, go ahead. But we have left off. Our yarn is still on this side. Just like in crochet, this would be kind of like our foundation chain. And once we make our foundation chain, we always turn our work. So just like in crochet, after every row of work, we have to turn our needle. Or I'll work to begin the next row. So, now we're going to get into the fun stuff. We are going to actually start knitting. Okay, I've just cut my tail very short. I would never cut it this short to actually work into, but because I want it visible so you can see what I'm working with, I cut it short so you can see it hanging. So, this is my working yarn. This is what I'm going to do everything else with. So the first thing I do when I go to work my knit stitches, I bring my working yarn behind my needle, I let my tail dangle, and then I'm going to do my grip. So one thing that's very different in knit from crochet is that you can choose which hand you're going to hold your working yarn with. In crochet, you always have it in Your non-dominant hand, and then you usually, well, not every time, but most people hold it in their non-dominant hand, and then they crochet with their dominant hand. In knit, depending kind of on who you learn it from or how you learn it, you might hold it in your non-dominant hand, or you might hold it in your dominant hand. Now I'm saying non-dominant and dominant instead of left and right because there are plenty of left-handed knitters that will use their non-dominant right hand to knit with. So to keep everything kind of straight in people's minds non-dominant is the hand that you're holding the needle with all the loops on it and your dominant hand is what you're actually doing the stitches with. So you'll move the loops from your non-dominant hand needle to your dominant hand needle. So this is important to know for how you're going to hold your working yarn. So, when you hold your working yarn in your non-dominant hand, it's called continental knitting. When you hold it in your dominant hand, the same hand that you're knitting with, it's called English knitting. There's some other names too, but those are kind of the most popular, so we'll stick with those. I'm not going to teach English knitting. That is where you're throwing, so if you see people knitting in the movies, you'll see them kind of a lot of times throwing the yarn and then knitting. We're not doing that. We're crocheters. We know how to hold. Our yarn in our left hand, we already have our favorite tension hold, and we can use all of that for knitting. So we are going to tension our yarn just like we do for knitting, and most likely, not every time, but most likely that's going to be the perfect hold for knitting that you do for crochet. So I say most likely, because there will be one or two, or many, who knows, that it's just not going to work. So that's why I say try different holds. There's lots of different kind of tensions that you can do. Mine, the way that I do it, it's the only way I've found that's very comfortable for me, and it's actually different from my crochet holds. So if you've seen any of my crochet videos, you know that I pinch my yarn like this. I do the weirdest hold. Hurts my hands when I crochet for a long time. I don't recommend it, but that's how I learned, so that's kind of what I do. I couldn't do that for knitting. It was not working so I had to actually come up with a tension hold. So mine, I take my pinky, I wrap it around, I go top to bottom, wrap it around once, then I weave it in and out of the rest of my fingers. So I have a full wrap on my pinky, then I go back over the top of my ring, under my middle, and over my pointer. So I have a very intricate wrap. This is the only tension I found that works. There is a great video that I learned how to do my continental knitting and my purling on Craftsy. I have a link for it in the description. It was the best video I've ever seen on knitting and I highly recommend it. She gives a lot more other tension holds that can work for you, but just her technique We'll make you knit faster, whether you're a seasoned knitter or you're just starting out. It was the best video, it taught me so many things, it made me the fastest knitter, and I loved it. So check out that link in the description, and we are going to get started on our knit stitch. So you are going to get whatever tension hold you like that you use for crochet or not. Hopefully it will work, the crochet one will work for you the same as the knitting will, so you don't have to come up with a different one, but we're going to start knitting. So when we go to work into our stitch, This is where the wood needles come in handy because you want to kind of slide your stitches down. The lower you are on your needle, the easier it is for your other needle to get into it. But if you get too far down, you might end up having it slide off. So the wood needles kind of help to keep it gripped on. But just be careful how far down you go. You don't want them to slide off because until you learn how to fix your stitches, you usually just have to rip it out and start over. This is how we're going to do our next stitch. You'll notice I'm using my middle finger to kind of hold my stitch in place and hold the working yarn down because it will pull up if I just do this. It's going to pull up and pull my stitch all the way over here. I want to keep this loop here facing down with the rest of them. It's easier to get into. So I'm ready to insert my needle. I'm going to create kind of an X. So I'm going above this loop and into the loop on my Only that front loop, so it goes all the way around of course, but we're only catching the front loop. So you can see I can pull it out a little bit, and then I'm gonna make kind of an axe. We yarn over in knitting, just like in crochet, the only difference is we go the opposite way. So in crochet, we always kind of reach over and then grab it and pull. In knitting, we're gonna go knitting needle on top to grab it. So crochet, we go crochet hook underneath, and grab and pull, and knitting, we go needle on top, grab it, and pull through. So if you are new, and it's difficult for you to kind of figure out how to get this yarn into your loop how you're going to see in a second, what you can do is lock it down. Pull it until it pops below this loop, and it kind of gets locked down. And then I can slide my needle back. And I'm going to bring the tip with that piece of yarn through the loop that I have on my needle. I pushed that to my shaft of my needle, I still have this loop on so now I need to get it off. So I'm going to slide my needle until that loop pops off. Now I have my first stitch done. You're going to notice that this tail wants to start flipping forward. Don't let it. That's part of the orientation that you want to keep to keep your slipknot and everything all nice and good at this first stitch. So just kind of pull on it if you need to. Okay, again, we're going to slide our loops down. We're going to hold on to this loop so we don't lose it as we enter our next stitch. So you're going to push through, and you can see how much room I have on this stitch. You know why? Because I kept all of these separated. If I had tightened it down right here, I can't move this stitch. It's not going to give me this much slack. See all this slack? Do I see all this slack, this big hole I have? I wouldn't have that if I had tightened them all down together. So make sure you're keeping those nice and loose on your cast-on so that you can insert your needle nice and easy. So I'm going to insert my needle through, make that X, catch the yarn. You can even use your pointer finger to help pull it down and hold on to it as you pull your needle through that nice big loop that you have. And then slide your needle on so everything's situated and not going to fall off, and then you're going to slide that loop off of your non-dominant hand needle. So you can see I took two stitches from this side, and I've put two stitches on this side. Okay, so hopefully you're figuring out if your tension is working for you, if not, start experimenting start like just going in and out there was one even in that video I was mentioning where I think she wrapped it around her whole wrist I believe so there's lots of different ways that you can do your tension but a good tension is going to keep your stitches nice and even so you want to keep them the same size as your loop Again, you want them nice and kind of spread out. You don't want to be making all of your stitches really tight and pulling really hard after you make them. So just keep everything nice and relaxed. So we're going to insert our needle in so you can see that I kind of bring it towards the edge and I push in at the same time. Then I'm going to yarn over, the opposite of our crochet, yarn over, and reach through, and you can see I'm not touching anything this time. Look how close to it falling off that it gets. That's kind of when you're doing it fast, what's going to happen. This is why that wood or bamboo comes in handy, because it's holding it, it's gripping it. I don't have to worry about it falling off. So I'm going to push through, and then pull that loop off the needle. Okay, so again we start working our stitches down to the end of our needle, but not too far where they're going to fall off. I always use my fingers to kind of hold them in place so that they're not sliding off as I do my stitches. So I'm inserting again. Grabbing and look it fell off, but because I'm holding on to it I still have that loop so I can pull through so I can actually make the stitch and not have to worry about Me losing it because I was holding onto it with my finger. That's not the ideal situation But you can see that that comes in handy. So at normal speed, this is what it's going to look like You're gonna insert pull So I don't want to do too many because I want to kind of go over on the needle. This is the hardest row you have working your cast on is the most difficult because if you didn't make that cast on, you know, stretchy enough, it's going to be really hard to work on too. It's the first row you don't have a lot of stuff to grip on to. It's just the most difficult. So once you get past this row, it gets a lot easier. So again, we're reaching in, creating that X, grabbing that yarn, pulling through the loop on our needle, pushing it to our shaft. That gets us our even stitches. If we kept it up here, it would be too small and tight. Then I let go and I pull off. And you will get to the point where you can work... I could probably work all of these stitches without pushing them down, especially if I was on a nickel-plated needle. So you won't have to sit there and keep pushing them down and pushing them down. You're going to realize as you get better and better at it that you can work them all the way down here. It's not going to... You don't have to sit there and stop and push every single time but you want to spread out your stitches on your needle get them nice and loose not super loose but you know where you have some slack to work into them for the next row and then that last slip knot remember we made a slip knot at the very beginning that you're just going to work the same way so you insert your needle Yarn over, pull it through, and now you're done with your first row. So one thing I like to do is kind of pull on it just to get it a little even and nice. So I do that every once in a while as I'm working. So you can see our knit stitch looks like the top of all of our crochet stitches. You get that little V, except it's across the front of your work instead of on top of your stitches. So we are going to turn because now we finished row one so that would be considered row one. We're gonna turn and we're gonna work row two. This little dash that kind of looks like the bottom bump of a foundation chain is a purl. That's what we call the purl stitch because when we make a purl stitch that's what it looks like. So the front of our knit stitch has the v's, the back side of our knit stitch has these little bumps we call purls. Okay, so, again, here's our working yarn, and it's in the front again, so we want to move it to the back and grab our tension. Hopefully, something will work well for you. It took me so many hours of knitting to find a good tension, so don't give up if it takes a little while. It really took me a long time to find a tension that I liked and worked well. With my knit and purl stitches because you're gonna the tension is really important when you go to purl stitching Knit stitching is a lot easier than the purl. So Using continental the purl It makes it so much faster, but you have to have a good tension. So start working now with your knit stitch Before you get into your purl stitch Okay, so for row two because we're doing the knit stitch again This creates a pattern called garter stitch So this is where you are working just knit stitch every single row and this is a great stitch or stitch pattern to use for edgings because when you work stockinette which is a knit and a purl so you knit one row then you purl the next row and then you alternate knit purl knit purl it creates a very rolled up fabric so if you need something to lay flat garter stitch or knitting every single This is a great option and it's really easy because all you have to do is knit. So I have my tension, I have my finger holding down this loop that I have, I'm going to move everything down just a little bit. Here, you know how I said don't get them right next to each other? This is the only place where that's okay. When you start pushing them down to the end of your needle, they can be as close as you want. You don't have to worry about it. Fondrums, they don't fall off. So again, I take my needle, I insert it into that loop, I grab, I can use this finger to help guide me through, I slide my needle down, and then I slide the loop off. Again, insert, grab, pull, and slide. So as you, my ends are hitting the bottom, sorry, so it's a little bit more difficult. So I slide my X, I grab my loop, and you can see, look at all this room I have. I'm keeping my stitches. If you are not able to pull your stuff this far apart, you're getting too tight. You're pulling too much on your working yarn. Keep it just tight enough that this loop is the size of your needle, but it can slide easily and you don't have too much slack on it. So again, I'm inserting my needle, going over the top, grabbing it, pulling it through, Sliding it down and then sliding the loop off of my needle. One thing that you should do to get in the habit is count your stitches after every row. Just like in crochet, you might lose a stitch, especially when you get into smaller yarn. This is why I like You can see everything so much easier. Superbulky to Everything is so much more clearer. You can see the purl bumps that we had from the previous row. learn with, because In worsted weight, it's so much smaller and it's so much easier to lose stitches until you can learn with you have suddenly a big hole in your work and you're like, what happened? So this big yarn really makes it easier to start learning superbulky.com. and to see your stitches really well. Count your stitches. Make sure that at the end of each row you still have 12. It doesn't seem like when you're watching me do it, like you wouldn't think that you could just suddenly lose a stitch and not realize. It's much easier than you think. When you're beginning, it's going to happen. So count after each row. So again, we're just inserting our needle. So you can see a nice big hole. Insert the needle. Push to an X. Yarn over. Bring it back. Push and pull up. Okay so now let's take a look nice and tight and now I have some garter stitch. So what garter stitch is, we had purl bump, now we have a knit stitch that's connecting it. So you can see that little knit stitch right here, that little v, it kind of loops over itself. On this side we see a little bit of a knit stitch because we did two and then we have our purl. As we go on, I'm going to do a couple rows and then we'll see how this garter is looking and I'm going to tell you how you count your rows when you're in garter stitch. Okay, so I turn my work and you'll see if I have my tension and I just finished this stitch, I just bring it over here so I don't have to keep on, you know, redoing my hold and I just flip it, I held on to my tension, I don't have to redo it and then I'm good to go for my next row. So I'm going to do this one a little faster. So I always grab that, push it down and hold onto it while I'm working that first stitch so I don't lose it. Push everything down a little bit more. I'm going to show you how much I can work without having to move my stitches. This is super bulky so it's pretty wide so you can see how far down I'm getting and then probably about this far. And I can push as I'm working so you'll notice when I start pulling this off I use my finger Finger to push. And I slide these at the same time as I'm pulling it off, so you can start getting a rhythm down to working this so that you can push and not have to stop and rearrange everything as you're going. So you can see my next row, I grab my needle, I start with no tension, I flip it to the back side and turn it over. Sometimes I like to pull on everything just to get it nice and evened out. This you can also do during blocking. But again, we're going to do another row. So this is row 4, so I'm going to show you after this row how we count these, because it's a little difficult to see, but it's actually really easy to count rows in garter stitch. Now let's look at what we have. So we can see everything. Alright, so as you make garter stitch, you're going to see those loops that we saw already there, up and down. So there's a top and a bottom, a top and a bottom. They're here again. So every two rows, you're going to get those loops. So when you're counting this, every time you see one of these, you've got two rows. So that's row one and row two, and this is row three and row four. So when you're counting, these loops that are here are part of row four. So if you're working your pattern and you forget where you're at, You just count. You say 2, 4, and these are all part of row 4. So that way you know that you're on 4. So when we look at this side, we can see these purl bumps down at the bottom. So that's row 1. Then we have these two that are two rows together, so 2 and 3. And then we have the purl bumps of row 4 that we just worked. So 1, 2, 3, and 4. Or, just look for your doubles. So this little loopy bottom here, you can see no purl stitches. So we have one, two, and three, four. So just count by twos for each row of garter stitch that you see. Okay, so the knit stitch is the most basic stitch you're going to use forever more in knitting. That's why it's called the knit stitch. So take your time practicing it. Keep on working on it, and keep on going until you feel comfortable with the stitch. You don't necessarily need to learn how to fix your mistakes yet, you know, if you drop stitches... Don't worry about it, just keep on making them until you feel comfortable at your speed, at your tension, and then you can learn how to fix all that stuff later. That's why I say never start with an actual project, just practice your stitches, because if you start with a project, you are going to be so disappointed when you're halfway there and you lose a stitch and you don't know how to fix it. So just practice, keep on going with your knit stitch. We're going to get into purl stitch, we're going to get into fixing mistakes, we're going to do all that so that before you start your first project you're going to feel comfortable at creating exactly what you want to create. So that is the knit stitch, if you have any questions leave them below and thank you for watching.