Stockinette Stitch ~ Knit For Crocheters Series

Okay, so we're ready for stockinette stitch. So stockinette is the fabric that you see everywhere. That's like what most of your knitted garments that you have in your closet are made of, and that's where you have the classic V's in the front and then the purls in the back. So that's all that we have to do to make it, is that we are going to knit the first row. So you can also do reverse stockinette, which means that you can purl the first row. So if you want your right side to be Do I need to be all purls? We're going to start with purls, but we're going to do kind of the classic stockinette and we're going to do knit. So just like we always do, we're going to come in from the side, yarn over, and bring through to do our knit stitch. I'm going to kind of do this fast because hopefully you've already watched my knit stitch video and you know how to do the knit stitches. So one thing that I'm going to go over with this is your edges, so I'm going to do a couple rows in a normal. stockinette where I knit all of my knits and I purl all my purls. So when you see that, what that means is that you're working the same thing that you see below. So when it says knit the knits and purls the purls, you know, whatever your pattern says, you're going to follow that. So this would be purl the purls because we have all purls on this second row below us and we're going to continue to purl because we want all of our purls on one side and we want all of our knits It's on the other. So I bring the yarn to the front Insert it, do my purl, check out my purl video if you need to, learn more about how I do my purl, where I learned my purl, if you like the look of it, how quickly I can do it, all from the crafts class that I learned. So, to get that classic knit fabric, this is all you do. So one thing that is a downfall of this fabric is that it will curl. So especially. For yarn, it's not as noticeable because it's heavier, so it's not going to curl as much. But if you have thin yarn, the ends of it are going to curl up like crazy. But if you've seen my steaming video, you'll see that you can correct it with blocking. You can block it straight. Or you can use a border so using garter stitch or a ribbing will help your stockinette lay flat. So if you have to have stockinette on the entire scarf or shawl or whatever you're doing you're going to have to block it to get it to lay flat. Otherwise put an edging on it and that will keep it from curling. So I'm going to do one more row of purls and then I'm going to give you a little pointer on if your edges are not looking good. So as you continue to knit, when you're new your edges might look a little messy. And that's just kind of... What happens? You don't quite know what to do with your edges. You aren't quite sure the tension to get your edges nice and neat. And your stockinette just doesn't really have a super nice edging to it. You know it's it's not going to be like really really pretty but it can be less loopy so if you notice that the sides of your stockinette are like crazy loopy all over the place Just keep practicing and it will get better, but you can do something. So here I am now. So instead of knitting the first stitch or purling the first stitch of your row, we're going to do something different. Okay, so what we're going to do to get our edges nice And stretched out, if you're having a problem with loopy edges, is we're going to slip the first stitch of each row. So every single row we do, we're going to slip that very first stitch, and we're going to work all the rest of our stitches normally. So what that's going to do is it's going to pull the stitch up. I'll explain how to slip it in a second, but it's going to pull the stitch up. So it's not going to be worked, and you can see it pulls on the stitch below, if I was doing it already it would have already started pulling, so this one might be a little loopy because of that extra bit. But we pull it up, and then when we come back on the next row we work into it. So it's pulling it and stretching it, kind of like a tall chain in crochet, if you've seen my tall chain videos, and it's going to pull out any extra slack that you may have from not quite knowing how to work your tension yet, so you'll see mine, if I flip this over, so when you look, because everything's kind of on the back side here, when you look at mine, they're pretty small, they look like a foundation chain, it's got the Vs, and it's pretty tight, because I'm used to doing it, I know how to kind of pull on the tension as I'm working my first stitch and my last stitch to make sure that my loops don't stick out too much. It's really... It's hard to say, like, pull on it, so when you work your first stitch, if you want it to not be super loose, you kind of got to pull on your tension so that it's nice and tight when you go, and that's going to help solve that problem. And if you're finding that pulling on it is not working for you, you're forgetting to do it, just slip it. Just don't worry about it and just slip the first stitch of every row and you'll be okay. You can use this in any pattern. You can substitute it whenever. You have something where you want the edge to show, so maybe a scarf where you're not putting an edging or sewing it to anything, you can use this. So what we're going to do is we're going to slip stitch, and what you do... is you're going to slip it purl-wise, so you're going to keep the yarn in the back, we're not going to bring it to the front, because if I do, it's going to create a little nub that I'm going to show you later what that looks like, but I'm going to slip it purl-wise as if I was going to purl, and I'm just going to pull it off. Why do I slip it purlwise? Because when I come back to work it on the next row, the loop is situated correctly. If I slipped it knitwise, so if I slipped it... Because if I was going to knit, it'll be backwards and I'll have a twisted stitch. So whenever you go to slip for the beginning of a row, slip it purlwise so when you come to work it on the next row, it will be situated the right way and you won't have to knit through the back loop or switch it around or anything like that. So the rest of the row gets worked like normal, we just knit all the way across, including the last stitch. And then on our purl row, you have two options as well. So if you like the nub, which you'll see in a little bit, you put your yarn to the back before you slip it. So you'll slip it just like you're going to slip it purl-wise again, but you're going to keep your yarn in the back as if you're knitting. If you don't want the nub, if you want the Vs to be all the way up without any kind of nub, which you're going to see in a second so you understand what the nub is, then you're going to put your yarn in front just like as if you were purling, and you're going to slip, and then you're going to work your purl. So you'll see the nubs in a second. It'll make more sense. Just know if you want the nub, put the yarn in the back. If you don't want the nub, put the yarn in the front. So I'm going to do some rows with different variations so you can see what each of these look like, and I'll be back in just a second. Well, let me show you this last stitch though, because this is where I slipped that first Knit stitch. So that's the same stitch from the previous row. So when I work it, it gets pulled up and it creates a nice long V that doesn't have any extra loops. So let me work some more rows and then I'll come back and show you what I have. Okay, I've worked a few more rows, as you can see, and you can see how this thick yarn is not curling. Usually when you do the stockinette, it'll kind of curl like this. If I do that, then you can see it curl, but you can see that it also... It kind of lays flat. Once I take it off the needles though, once I bind off, then this is kind of curling right now, but that might curl more, so just one of those things that you need to be aware of. I wanted to show you the differences in just knitting and purling across versus slipping the knit with the yarn in the back, slipping the purl with the yarn in the back, versus I'm slipping the knit. with the yarn in the back and the purl with the yarn in the front. okay so down at the bottom here these are my normal knitting and purling rows so you can see that because i have practiced a whole lot i have my tension pretty well and it kind of looks pretty much like a foundation chain then we go up a little bit you see these little bumps here on this side but you don't see them on this side this is where i slipped my knit with the yarn in the back And I slipped my purl with the yarn in the back. So when I slip the yarn in the back with the purl, when I bring it around, it creates this little guy in between. So if you like that, you can slip, I should probably do one so you can see that, but you can create that by slipping the yarn kind of reversed. Well, you can, it's basically when you do. your knit stitch slip it with the yarn in the front and then move it to the back and then do your knit stitching and then what you'll get is you'll get that little crossover as well if you like that little look a crossover you can do that don't and let me finish though so it's a little easier to manage here but if you don't like that and you just want it to look like Running up the side, like a foundation chain and crochet, you're going to want to slip your stitches, your knit stitches, with the yarn in the back, and slip your purl stitches with the yarn in the front. So just the way the yarn that you would normally hold it for your stitch, the way you want to hold it when you slip. Then you will get these foundation chains running along the side that are nice and stretched out. Once you get your thing off the needles, you'll see the difference in the work. You can see how much smaller it is here because we're working in every single row. You can see how much more it's spread out, so it's a little bit more decorative, more noticeable. So there's different pros and cons to each one, but if you find that you just cannot get your edges nice and neat, start slipping and it will help. Create a longer line from your previous row so that you're not having the big bumps sticking out. So that is your stockinette. If you have any questions about all that good stuff, leave them below and thank you for watching.