Beginning Knit For Crocheters Intro and Materials

Hey everyone, it's Deja from Crochet Ever After and today I am teaching you how to knit for crocheters. So, what does that mean? That means that because I'm a crocheter, I already have a set of skills that can help me when I'm learning to knit. So if you're already a crocheter and you have attention that you like, you know what gauge is, you know how to read your patterns, you're not a total newbie to yarn, you can benefit from learning to knit the way that I'm going to show you. I'm going to explain why, or the similarities and differences of knit versus crochet as we're working. You'll see how I explain when you're yarn overing, yarn overing, I don't think that's a word, when you yarn over, what you're going to do to remember which way you're supposed to go. So little tips and tricks that Only a crocheter might understand so if you're not a crocheter and you're trying to learn to knit By all means check out this video. It's still going to be very detailed very informative But I'm also going to talk about crochet as I go so if you don't know how to crochet I Hopefully won't annoy you or anything, but it is there to help the crocheters To pick up knitting a little faster. But first things first, I'm going to talk about supplies. What you should get to start working your stitches. Okay so the very first thing you obviously, obviously need is yarn and I suggest getting big yarn. I always say when learning crochet, go big because you can see your stitches easier, you can see what you're doing, you can see what comes next, it's a lot easier to learn because you can see those things so much more clearly. Same with knit, especially with knit, because when you're knitting, A lot of patterns will read work as work over pattern or knit the purls and purls the knits. It'll tell you that you should keep doing what you did the row before or do the opposite and if you can't read your stitches, it's going to be totally difficult to do that. So I say get some super bulky yarn, bulky or super bulky which is a 5 or a 6, that's the little yarn label, yarn ball that you see on there. Get a 5 or 6 where you can actually see what you're making. So as opposed to a worsted, so this is about the same amount of rows, you can see the difference in size. You can see this has... A much smaller stitch. It's just going to be harder to see and it's going to be more frustrating to learn with. So you can see when I hold the two yarns side by side that the medium, which is this one here, is about half the size of the super bulky. So medium worsted you can find everywhere. This is the one that you're probably going to be working with mostly once you get the hang of it. But I say until you get the hang of it, go bigger. And also, get light yarn. You may love black and all you want to make is black beanies, don't learn with black. You will frustrate yourself into a hole and you'll throw it all away and you will give up because it's so hard to see your stitches when you're working with dark yarn. You're either going to have to get like a daylight bulb right over you as you work so Work so you can see your stitches or just forgo it. And get some light yarn. And I always say, don't start making a project. Don't make your first thing that you're learning with a project. Just learn how to do the stitches before you start a project. Because you're going to drop stitches. You're going to miscount them. And especially in knitting, why I love crochet is because it's so easy to fix your mistake. You just pull it out and you have no problem going back to the mistake and starting over. With knit, you either need to Unknit it or tink it or pull the whole thing out or if you're really skilled at frogging it to where you can get a whole row and not totally mess up your stitches. That takes time and practice and lots of mistakes that you've made to be able to do that without messing up your entire project. So I say start with swatches, big yarn, light color and then the needles are the next most important thing. So, with the yarn, get that super bulky, there's one yarn I do not recommend to start off with and it's a really popular yarn right now and that is the Bernat Blanket and I love this yarn, this is a great yarn, this is not a great yarn to learn how to knit with though because it is a boucle kind of yarn and boucle is B-O-U-C-L-E, I have looked it up to say To say it correctly, so all you people out there with my pronunciation. Always making jokes when I say skein wrong. I know I just said it right. Right? Boucle is the correct way to say it. Those were really popular like 10 years ago. They were everywhere. I don't see them as much now. But this is kind of a thinner type boucle. So if you look at it close, let's see if I can get it to focus. It's kind of fuzzy looking. Like a real boucle has got like those real poofy kind of... This one is more like a consistent boucle but it is so difficult to knit with and crochet – not so much with crochet but with the knitting because it gets stuck on itself like it doesn't – you really have to work hard to get all of your stitches. Even so I don't recommend learning with this yarn so get some super bulky but avoid The blanket until you know how to make okay, so the next thing you need is needles But I'm gonna give you some pointers, so let me grab my crochet hook Now with crochet hooks you can get all kinds of materials, all different kinds of shapes, you know, whoops, whatever you want to use. But the actual part you're using is the same no matter what kind of hook you have. It's a shaft with a point and a hook. So if I make a blanket and I'm using an H hook, Which would be really small, but just for the sake of this, if I'm using an H hook for my blanket, I can take this hook and I can go use it for a beanie, and then I can go use it for a scarf, and then I can go use it for a shawl. So I can buy this one H hook and use it for all my projects. Can't do that with knitting. This is where they get you. They use more yarn in crochet, but you use more needles in knitting. So the cost differential is... Maybe negligible when you take that into consideration, but let me give you pointers on what kind of needles you should start with. Okay, so, let me grab my knitting needle bin, and this isn't even all my knitting needles. I have like a whole basket over there full of knitting needles, but when you are knitting, you could need a lot of different kind of needles. So you can go with straight needles with little stoppers on the end. You can go with DPNs where they have points on both ends. There are, oops that's just a cord, this is for interchangeable needles where you can take the tips off and change the size of the tip with the size of the cord. Okay. Or you can get fixed circulars, so that's a fixed one, the cord does not come off. And there are so many choices and so many materials that it can be overwhelming to know what to get, when to get it, what should I start with, and I'm going to tell you. My opinion, of course, back in here. I say start with some wood. These are really reasonable priced. You can get a whole set of the straight needles with the ends popped on. I think it's like 13 different sizes for like $10 on Amazon and then the same with the DPNs. These come in sets of four. 4 on Amazon, you can get them in 4 or 5 depending on what you're making, but these DPNs, you can get a whole gigantic range of sizes for like $10 as well, and I say start with wood for a reason, and the reason is because it's a natural material, it's going to hold onto your yarn much better than metal plated or nickel plated or aluminum, whatever metal you might buy. So for example, I have this little swatch on this wooden DPN and if I sit there and I shake it as hard as I can, like let me flick it as hard as I can, I'm barely getting any movement. I like flicked that as hard as I could and it's sitting there still. None of my stitches fell off, they're all holding on nice and tight. I don't, when I'm making my stitches, I don't have to worry that they're falling off. How did I learn this? From trial and error. Because I had aluminum needles when I started. I went to a conference where somebody, there was a Lion, it wasn't somebody, it was the Lion Brand yarn company, had a booth. And they had people teaching knit and crochet. And I was like, I'm finally gonna learn how to knit. Finally from a person and not a book. And I sat there and she already had the cast on. She had a couple rows done, kind of like this. And it was on aluminum needles and it was medium worsted weight yarn. And she showed me how to do the knit stitch. And I was like, yes, I got this. And then I went home. And like two stitches fell off and I was lost and I gave up for like another three years because I couldn't do it because my yarn was falling off my aluminum needles, my stitches were tiny because it was medium worsted and it was just a mess. So my favorite needles now are nickel plated which is this one here and this is an Addi needle but learning to knit on this is a really bad idea so let's try the shake test again. So I flick this. Two flicks and my yarn is gone. So as you can see, these are made for your yarn to slide. These are actually called Addi Turbos because it makes your knitting faster because your yarn doesn't stick. Now, I made the mistake of swearing I would never ever use metal needles. I was like, I am always losing my stitches with metal needles, I'm never buying them. So I went and bought a whole lot of wooden needles. I bought those pretty Caspian Blue interchangeables from Knit Picks, and I bought Rosewood... Drapes, you know all these pretty wooden needles then I got Knit Crate newbies Which I'll leave a link to as well it was a great little series of different projects that you got each month in the mail and You got to make stuff and one month was the Hexipuff So these are Hexipuffs very cute little squishy Hexagons that you make and then eventually these will all be joined into a blanket. I'm very far behind But they sent These, or not these, but they sent the yarn to make them with some Addi, which is the name of the company, so you hear me say Addi, that's the name of the company, A-D-D-I. They sent me a set of DPNs, so they sent me some of these, but in mini form, so they were probably, oops, there's my little inner chain again. I think they were even smaller than this. They were skinnier than this. And I was like, oh no, there's no way I'm gonna be able to make these things with these tiny little needles. So I actually went and got the wood version of the the DPNs to make, because I was like, there's no way I can use the metal. And then I tried to make it with the wood and it was so difficult making those tiny stitches because the yarn kept getting stuck or it wasn't moving very easily so I was like alright let me try the metal needles and then by the end of my first Texapuff I was like I love nickel plated needles. I must own them. So I started buying them and using them and I recommend them once you learn how to not lose your stitches because it's mostly when you're actually knitting that you drop stitches. So you'll kind of pull one off and then the next one will come off with it. So as you work on your knitting and you get better at it, you'll know how to How to keep your stitches from falling off and then you can move on to getting some nickel nickel plated and trying them out because I really think it will help your speed, it will make it go faster. But to begin with, no metal, don't get aluminum, don't get nickel, get wood. I don't like it either. DPNs or the straights. The DPNs, if you think that you're going to start trying out beanies and you don't want to do circulars yet, I think I use circulars for most everything now. So I would say just get like a pair, get one of those sets of like the straight needles so that you can swatch and learn all your different stitches. But don't get a huge amount of needles yet because as you go your patterns that you want to make they'll tell you what kind of needle to use. They'll say use a five millimeter straight or use a five millimeter circular. It'll tell you the best one to use for that project. But you also might find out like if you're making a scarf you can use this circular to make a scarf. So you'll find out that I'm going to do that. You like having this because when you're taking a break, you can move your stitches to the middle and not have to worry about your stitches falling off, whereas if I take a break and I put this down and then I sit on it and then I grab my needle, pulling it out, I'm going to pull all my stitches out. So there's pros and cons to each one, but I think circulars are my favorite now and nickel plated circulars. I really want to get the Addi Click lace tips. Which are really expensive, so I keep waiting. But eventually I'm sure I'm going to get them. But I love Addi, they're so smooth. Don't go and get Susan Bates. These are like very popular at Joann's and Michael's and big box craft stores. Once you want to try metal needles, don't get these because you're not going to like them. They, I got a couple of these and they're such a pain to work with. So straight out of the bag, you can see how straight this cord is. This cord has got just barely a bend to it and it's not, I didn't have to do anything to it to straighten it out. The join is perfect, my yarn never gets caught when it's sliding along the join. So where the cord meets the tip, it does not get stuck. This has no weird coating to it, it doesn't feel strange. The yarn just slides right off nice and easy. Whereas the Susan Bates, this is how it comes out. You have to, there's like tutorials online on how to get this straight. It involves, like, boiling water, other things that you don't, I don't want to do. I don't want to stick this in boiling water to get it straight. The joins have kind of strange crimps on them where the cord is going in. I think that these, they don't feel as slick as this. Whatever coating Addi puts on, it's just very slick kind of coating. Some of these I've gotten. They feel like they have a film on them. I don't know, it's weird. They just, they're not as easy to use. So I would say when you decide to make the jump to metal needles, and I highly recommend that you do if you want to get faster at knitting, you can stick with wood forever. It's a great material. You won't be losing stitches as much. But if you want to get faster, Definitely switch to metal and then get a quality metal needle. There's a few other brands that are really good. Signature, I think is what one of them is called. Knitter's Pride, those are really good brands, very quality made and still not as, not like a huge amount of money. So you'll find ones that you're gonna use over and over again. So if you wanna make beanies all day long, You're going to get like a 16-inch circular in a 5-millimeter size if you're doing medium worsted beanies. So invest and get that really good needle that's going to make it the easiest for you to do your project. You will thank me in the long run even though you had to shell out a couple extra bucks at the beginning. It's totally worth it because you're going to get one of those cheap needles and it's going to suck and then you're going to have to go get the more expensive one anyways. So it's this, you know, get the more expensive one. Right off the bat, and you will thank me.